Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives

246 Pages·2016·1.77 MB·English

by  Gary Younge

ALSO BY GARY YOUNGE
The Speech: The Story Behind Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Dream
Who Are We—And Should It Matter in the 21st Century?
Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States
No Place Like Home: A Black Briton’s Journey Through the American South

Copyright © 2016 by Gary Younge Published by Nation Books, an imprint of Perseus Books, LLC., a
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Younge, Gary, author.
Title: Another day in the death of America: a chronicle of ten short lives / Gary Younge.
Description: New York: Nation Books, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016014076| ISBN 9781568589763 (eBook) |
Subjects: LCSH: Violence—United States—Case studies. | Violent crimes—United States—Case
studies. | Youth and violence—United States—Case studies. | Firearms and crime—United States
—Case studies. | Firearms ownership—United States—Case studies. | United States—Social
conditions—1980-| BISAC: SOCIAL SCIENCE / Violence in Society. | FAMILY &
RELATIONSHIPS Death, Grief, Bereavement. | POLITICAL SCIENCE Public Policy / Social
Policy.
Classification: LCC HN90.V5 Y675 2016 | DDC 303.60835—dc23 LC record available at
https://lccn.loc.gov/2016014076
First Print Edition
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To Jaiden, Kenneth, Stanley, Pedro, Tyler,
Edwin, Samuel, Tyshon, Gary, and Gustin—
for who you were and who you might have been.
You already know enough. So do I.
It is not knowledge we lack.
What is missing is the courage to understand
what we know and to draw conclusions.
—SVEN LINDQVIST,
“Exterminate All the Brutes”
CONTENTS
Map
Introduction
Author’s Note
1 Jaiden Dixon, Grove City, Ohio
2 Kenneth Mills-Tucker, Indianapolis, Indiana
3 Stanley Taylor, Charlotte, North Carolina
4 Pedro Cortez, San Jose, California
5 Tyler Dunn, Marlette, Michigan
6 Edwin Rajo, Houston, Texas
7 Samuel Brightmon, Dallas, Texas
8 Tyshon Anderson, Chicago, Illinois
9 Gary Anderson, Newark, New Jersey
10 Gustin Hinnant, Goldsboro, North Carolina
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Notes
Select Bibliography
MAP
INTRODUCTION
THE MOST COMMON ADJECTIVE EMPLOYED BY WEATHER
REPORTERS on Saturday, November 23, 2013, was treacherous. But in reality
there was not a hint of betrayal about it. The day was every bit as foul as one
would expect the week before Thanksgiving. A “Nordic outbreak” of snow, rain,
and high winds barreled through the desert states and northern plains toward the
Midwest. Wet roads and fierce gusts in northeast Texas forced Willie Nelson’s
tour bus into a bridge pillar not far from Sulphur Springs in the early hours,
injuring three band members and resulting in the tour’s suspension. With
warnings of a five hundred–mile tornado corridor stretching north and east from
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Mississippi, the weather alone killed more than a dozen people. And as the
storm front shifted eastward, so did the threat to the busiest travel period of the
year, bringing chaos so predictable and familiar that it has provided the plot line
for many a seasonal movie.
There was precious little in the news to distract anyone from these inclement
conditions. A poll that day showed President Barack Obama suffering his lowest
approval ratings for several years. That night he announced a tentative deal with
Iran over its nuclear program. Republican Senate minority whip John Cornyn
believed that the agreement, hammered out with six allies as well as Iran, was
part of a broader conspiracy to divert the public gaze from the hapless rollout of
the new health care website. “Amazing what WH will do to distract attention
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from O-care,” he tweeted. Not surprisingly, another of the day’s polls revealed
that two-thirds of Americans thought the country was heading in the wrong
direction. That night, Fox News was the most popular cable news channel; The
Hunger Games: Catching Fire was the highest-grossing movie; and the college
football game between Baylor and Oklahoma State was the most-watched
program on television.
It was just another day in America. And as befits an unremarkable Saturday