Stories in Midst of Tragedy

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The violent tragedies of the deaths of two black men and the five police officers shattered my heart, as it did many Americans. The tragedy called for words but also made words feel useless. A column can’t dispense any advice worth holding, but I have two tiny stories that have framed the tragedies for me. Perhaps they can be chairs for people to sit and converse. No healing happens without sharing, and no useful action is birthed without conversation.

I was watching the Facebook stream of Philando Castile, his white shirt soaking red, body slipping down the passenger chair, his neck arched, ridges of his Adam’s apple pushing through the taut skin as his head slumped, and Diamond Reynolds looking through her phone camera directly at me, giving witness, with the surprising distance of a journalist, with only a slight tremble hinting at the wreckage of her heart.

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