As many of you reading this probably feel saddened, sickened and outraged when we turn on the news to yet another tragic and senseless slaughter of black lives, we can only hope not to become numbed and completely apathetic. While it is absolutely maddening from Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Samuel Dubois, and the daily litany of abuses, I try to keep reminding myself to "stay awake” and to stay engaged in whatever ways I can.
Read MoreOne of the living expressions of the similarities between the killing of gay and black men is the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Hate Crimes Prevention Act. James Byrd was the black man in Texas who was tied to the back of a truck and was dragged to his death. I never suggest equivalence between black suffering and gay suffering, but there is something about the hatred that blackness and/or gayness evokes in some persons that must not go unnoticed.
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