Doug Lemov's field notes

Two nights ago, a former student at our school in Rochester was shot dead in the street after a basketball game at the Boys and Girls club. You already know the story. A car drove up. Three people were shot dead. The shooter drove away.

He was 19, Raekwon, and a good kid.  He had struggled since he left Rochester Prep, but he was working at a youth center, steadying himself and contributing, trying to help teens. That was typical. As his former teacher, Colleen reminded me, he always had a way of looking out for low-status kids. But that isn’t really the point. The point is that his life mattered.

This isn’t the first time a former student of mine has been shot and killed.  I taught Samuel in sixth grade back in Boston. At 21 he was shot dead. He was funny, brash, smart, caring. He’d just gotten a steady job and was out celebrating a friend’s birthday with his first paycheck. Sadly, if you work in urban communities long enough you know kids who’ve been shot. How is it possible that such a thing can be said in our society?  But it’s true.

This has been a terrible year for America. We’ve come to understand (Lord, I hope we understand) some terrible things about ourselves and the ease with which Black lives can be taken in our society.  It is especially galling, disempowering, infuriating when those lives are taken by the people, sometimes the system, sworn to protect them. Doubly so when there are no repercussions.  Ten times that when there is an unspoken code among those sworn to protect the people that leads them to silently protect their colleagues who have broken their vows instead.  #Eric Garner, #Michael Brown, #Tamir Rice, #Baltimore. Who’s not tired of the need for more hashtags?

Those cases rightly draw our attention, but the constant drum-beat of the more commonplace taking of Black lives… young Black men especially… goes on and on and on.  If the actions of wayward police officers against Black citizens are unforgivable, most police officers, Black and White alike, serve and protect with bravery and commitment. Seems like they—and we—are losing the battle to bring safety to neighborhoods and sometimes whole cities that need it.

I found myself wondering about the pleas of the police for witnesses to come forward with which the article in the local paper ended its coverage. It’s possible that that other code of silence and “loyalty” will prevail and that no one will admit to having seen anything. In the paper, the Rev. Lewis Stewart is quoted saying, “Black lives must matter not just when law enforcement officers take a life, but when another black person takes a life.” But I feel fear. Fear that nothing will ever make us restrict access to guns in our society and fear that there will be no justice for the young men who die, like Raekwon, without a hashtag. Their lives matter. Protecting them is not about fighting as clear and easily defined a “power”–it’s about better schools and better job opportunities but also about a lack of tolerance for–in fact a hatred of–crime within communities. In some ways, it’s a harder fight because it requires cooperation between and trust among police and communities currently riven with tension and it requires demanding change within communities.  But it’s a fight we also have to fight.