Justice for Trayvon, Justice for all our children

I'm sitting at a beautiful airy music concert, the highlight of every summer, the Big Island Music Festival. On stage is a handsome young man, ukulele virtuoso Kris Fuchigami, with his mom playing backup on keyboard. But I cannot hear anything.

I wish I were surprised by the verdict, but my heart is breaking.

How do we raise our sweet children of color? What do we tell them? What do we tell ourselves?

Just last night, my multiracial nine year old boy--who could look like any number of ethnic stereotypes--stayed up late, refusing to sleep, waiting for me to come home. When I finally arrived home, after a long day where I had travelled to 14,000 feet altitude and back, he wrapped his arms around my neck and kissed my face, "You're the best mommy in the world. Really you are."

I wrote the article below for Chicago is the World 16 months ago when the case first broke. Today it looks hopelessly naive. I wish a list of rules was enough to keep our children safe. I am lost.

I always felt some distance from the Vincent Chin case because of time and geography and age and naïveté. There is no distance today. 

My thoughts are with the Martin family. 

Chicago is the World » Lessons I do not want to teach my children–about Dharun Ravi, Trayvon Martin, Shaima Alawadi

http://chicagoistheworld.org/2012/03/lessons-i-do-not-want-to-teach-my-children-about-dharun-ravi-trayvon-martin-shaima-alawadi/

NAACP | Urge the DOJ to file civil rights charges

http://www.naacp.org/page/s/doj-civil-rights-petition

Tweet me your thoughts @fkwang for Remembering Vincent Chin
 http://rememberingvincentchin.com 

Typed this out on my phone today because it could not wait.