Another junkie died today, his blood steaming, cooling, in Pittsburgh’s winter streets. The pale, blue, afternoon sky, moving too soon into night, settled darkness on the day, and on the junkies’ life. This all-too-common narrative, the background noise of our lives, fails to stir our outrage. Crawling on top of the man, as he gasps his last, his seven-year-old son. They die together, son cradled in father’s embrace. Both riddled with bullets. And still, the community fails to find the outrage. A black man’s death means nothing to a society conditioned to judge his worth by his vice. The death of his son means even less.
