Finally, #JusticeforRenisha!
“A Detroit jury found Theodore Wafer guilty of murder today in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Renisha McBride on his porch. [She was knocking on his door, asking for help after crashing her car]….
McBride’s parents, Monica McBride and Walter Simmons, said they were pleased with the verdict, but said they never would have had to be in this position if Wafer had called 911 the night their daughter showed up on his porch.
“Me and Walter know who she was,” McBride said of her daughter. “She was not violent. She was a regular teenager…Her life mattered.”
Also, related, here is a really important op-ed about girls of color and why we can’t shortchange them by solely focusing on programs to help boys of color, via Girls for Gender Equity
“Renisha McBride, a young black woman from Detroit, knocked on the door of Theodore Wafer seeking help. The 19-year-old had run her car off the road and was hoping that someone in the home would give her a hand. Instead, Mr. Wafer, a white man, took her life, shooting her at close range from behind a locked door.
Like Trayvon Martin, who was shot by a neighborhood-watch volunteer, Renisha was unarmed at the time of her tragic death.
Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the man who killed Mr. Martin, President Obama and many of America’s leading philanthropies were inspired to start My Brothers Keeper: an unprecedented effort that now has attracted more than $300-million for a public-private partnership dedicated to responding to the racism that is devastating the lives of so many men and boys of color.
But questions remain: What if the epidemic levels of domestic violence against women of color were taken as seriously as violence committed by strangers? What if violence targeting all people of color—Renisha McBride as well as Trayvon Martin; women as well as men—inspired action?
Philanthropy has a key role to play in answering those questions and responding to the problems of systemic racism in our country.”
