Why Black Lives and Violence in the Black Community Matter, Especially Now

BY REBECCA HEYWARD

Let me tell you a story from my childhood.

When I was in high school, 9th or 10th grade, I don’t really remember, a girl named Elsa was murdered in a fight with another girl over a boy.  She was sixteen.  I never knew her, but I remember hearing the announcement of her death over the loudspeaker in Spanish class, and sitting in silence and remembrance over a life that was so bright and yet so quickly put out.  I remember wondering how girls could kill one another, and over something so trivial.  I didn’t understand.  I still don’t.

When I was a freshman in college, a person very close to me was murdered.  His name was Justin, he was 18.  Stabbed in the back by an ex-girlfriend when he went to tell her he was moving and would most likely never see him again.  I remember his smile, his laugh, the way he always managed to cheer me up or know when I was struggling with something.  We had been friends since middle school and he would go to drama club meetings with his girlfriend, a girl who I knew from elementary school although she was a year younger.  I don’t know what drove her to murder someone, and I never will.

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