Not Another One

"That's one more kid that will never go to school
Never get to fall in love
Never get to be cool." - Neil Young
I hate that I keep coming back to that line. I hate that it comes to me far too frequently. It's back again because a fourteen year old boy was shot and killed on the streets of Oakland. I hate that I can't find a way to rationalize how this young man deserved, in any way, to have his life taken away. I hate that his parents will have to bury their child.
Hate, I tell kids, is a very strong word. It means that you can't find anything good about something. You can have great disdain for someone or something. You can dislike them mightily, but hate? Hate, as Denis Leary once pointed out, is learned. I have learned to hate this circumstance. No matter how many times it is repeated, the death of one child for no reason generates hate. Hate for a world that can take away life so casually. No witnesses? Not even for a twenty-thousand dollar reward? Why wouldn't someone want there to be justice? Why isn't there more outrage? I hate that I have to think like that.
But I do. And I wonder what it will take to make all lives matter. I wonder what it will take to make those sidewalk shrines a thing of the past. I wonder what a fourteen year old boy could do that would be worth killing him. If it was an accident, or he was an innocent bystander, or it was a case of mistaken identity, that doesn't make it any better. Davon Ellis did not deserve to die. His is the same story with that same sad, ironic twist, where his parents were planning on moving him out of Oakland next year. To give him a chance. Now that chance is gone. So is Davon. For what? In time, we may learn the full story, but walking down the street with your friends at eight o'clock on a Saturday night hardly seems like a crime punishable by death. It sounds a lot like what fourteen year old boys should be doing. Not dodging bullets.
Yes, I learned to hate this thing, but it started as sorrow. When that sorrow became too much to bear, it turned even darker. I rage against this thing that I cannot understand. Will not understand. Davon deserved to have a chance to play football on the JV team. He deserved a chance to fall in love. He deserved a chance to be cool. He deserved a chance to be a sophomore in high school.
I will be riding my bike past the candles and the teddy bear and the messages written in chalk. Until they are cleaned up and moved to the next location. I hate that too. Aloha, Davon. I wish you were here to stomp on the Terra. Keep on rockin' in the free world.