Don’t Scapegoat My Son
He didn’t create Covid-19, spread it, or mismanage the response
“What did we do wrong?” My 10-year-old son asked on our morning dog-walk ritual. It was chilly enough to fish out our winter jackets. It was two days after March 16. I had to talk to him about what had happened in Atlanta. We were planning a spring break trip to Atlanta and, like all kids, he had been bragging to his friends about the upcoming trip. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
“I don’t want to go there if there are dead bodies.” He’s still learning to be more precise with his words.
I assured him that there were no more dead bodies.
“Is it contained?”
Well, yes, as far as the murderer. He’s behind bars.
But the racism and sexism that dehumanized the women in the eyes of the shooter? No.
The worldview that warped the eyes of the 21-year-old white Christian, who fetishized the Asian American women as objects of his desire, then the object of his anger? No.
The white supremacy myth that says the shooter’s internal turmoil and confession that he wasn’t racially…
