The Black Lives Matter movement has grown to become the first major racial justice movement in the United States since the civil rights movement of the 1950s and ’60s.
Like most public writers, I was used to getting notes that were crude, crazy or even mildly threatening. Normally, I would say a quick prayer for these obviously troubled people and get on with my day. This time it felt different, precisely because the author wasn’t insulting or obviously deranged.
If we really want to scale back our reliance on prison, we need to change how we approach violence, and most people—politicians, reformers, the public—seem unwilling to do this.