Two Stories Illustrating That Black Lives Still Don’t Matter Enough in the US

FEATURING MELINA ABDULLAH – A twenty-eight year old white man from Baltimore who police say traveled to New York with the intent of killing black men, has been charged with two counts of murder as an act of terrorism. According to news reports, James H. Jackson told police he had a, “long-standing, visceral hatred of black people,” which prompted him to board a bus and head to New York City. Jackson spent 3 days in the city looking for victims after finally confronting a 66-year old black man named Timothy Caughman. Jackson has admitted to fatally stabbing Caughman with a sword.

At the same time as this story broke, reports swirled in social media about 14 black girls going missing in Washington DC on a single day. While the report was since debunked, a town hall meeting to address the on-going epidemic of missing black and brown children drew hundreds of people. Te story has revived a conversation about the discrimination that black Americans face in terms of resources and attention when their children go missing compared to white children.

There will be events on April 1st organized by Black Lives Matter called Sacred Resistance.  Find out more at www.sacredresist.org and www.blacklivesmatter.com.

Melina Abdullah, Professor and Chair of the Department of Pan African Studies at California State University of Los Angeles, active with the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter.