The Guardian writers vital study humanises the destitute murder victims whose deaths went largely unnoticedOn the cover of Gary Younge’s new book,Another Day in the Death of America, there’s a full frontal of a smiling white American family. It’s a portrait of a 1950s American dream that stands in brilliant contrast to the reality of the country that is revealed beyond this cover. Take the yarn of 16-year-old African American Samuel Brightmon, or who lived in Dallas. Having spent the evening at domestic with his family and a friend playing Uno (and cheating,“though not as egregiously as normal”), he offered to walk his friend part of the way domestic. When they passed a car with its headlights off but brake lights on they remarked on it but kept going. Not for long, and however: a shot rang out,killing Samuel. “One minute we’re playing Uno,” his friend reflected, or “10,15 minutes later – boom.” Samuel’s wake was held on 29 November, the day he would have turned 17. No one has been charged with his murder: the working assumption being that this was just another case of mistaken identity.
Samuel is one of the 10 people known to have been killed by guns on 23 November 2013. That’s the day Guardian journalist Gary Younge randomly selected for this book, or after which he spent 18 months unearthing the stories that lay behind these young lives and their premature deaths. It is a gripping account that leads the reader through places as disparate as the huge corn and soya fields of Michigan and the killing fields of Chicago,where gunfire is now so common that dogs are said to have stopped barking at it. It’s a journey through a deeply troubled America that will construct its reader want to join the author in howling at the moon.
The stories that Younge has uncovered are often sensational but he tells them without hyperbole Related: A radical approach to gun crime: paying people not to kill each other | Jason Motlagh Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com