By
Sikivu Hutchinson
There are few accessible youth community centers in the
over half-mile stretch where fifteen year-old Hannah Bell was killed
in April 2018 in front of a South L.A. hamburger stand on Western and 78th
Street. Out for a bite to eat, Bell and
her mom, Samantha Mays, were engaging in a familiar weekend ritual that should
have been one of ordinary, average mother-daughter togetherness. Instead, she became one of the scores of
African American youth slain on Los Angeles streets with no
leads on their killers. At a spring 2018 press conference and vigil
organized to commemorate Hannah and call for the apprehension of her killer, her
family and friends highlighted the irony of national focus on the Parkland,
Florida mass shootings when gun violence disproportionately impacts working
class African American communities. Bell’s brother commented that, “If we’re
supposed to be this great ‘sanctuary state’ we need to make sure it’s a safe
place for our kids.” Hannah had “great,
positive role models. They were all headed to college, they were all learning.
She was a great person.”
Nearly a year later, Bell’s murder remains unsolved,
the City’s offer
of a $50,000 reward for information on her killing is still in play, and the corner
where she was slain bustles with “normal” activity.
It is not normal for a child to be killed at virtually
point blank range on a busy street at nighttime. Hannah, like seven year-old Jazmine
Barnes, whose recent murder in Houston, Texas elicited national outrage
when it was reported that she was potentially targeted by a white killer, was more
than likely killed by someone from the community. By a person who knew that
targeting a black girl from the neighborhood would probably not elicit national
attention.
A student at nearby LAUSD Santee High School, Hannah
lived in an area that is notoriously bereft of safe, culturally responsive
spaces for young people. Though violent
homicides have purportedly declined in Los Angeles, Black women and girls
remain disproportionately vulnerable to gun violence, intimate partner
violence, and sexual violence in greater numbers. The nexus of these issues makes basic safety
in school communities and neighborhoods a pressing Black feminist concern. Being deprived of the right to patronize
local businesses safely is not an issue that white students have to contend
with in L.A.’s Westside and Valley neighborhoods. This, and the constant
specter of an early death, or sexual violence victimization, are not issues
that define the mental health and wellness of white children. Yet, Black girls must
navigate these traumas in their everyday lives while they are still expected to
be high-functioning, mega-strong caregivers conditioned to meet the needs of
others before themselves.
During a recent feminist of color mental health institute
for Black and Latinx girls from three South L.A. high schools, students identified
stress from caregiving, violence, and harassment (at school and online) as
being the most pressing issues they confront on a daily basis. In
intergenerational workshops with Shaunelle Curry, founder of Media Done Responsibly, and storyteller/poet
Jaden Fields, they discussed self-care and community empowerment strategies,
and explored the power of creative writing as healing and resistance, drawing upon
Black lesbian poet Audre Lourde’s maxim about self-care as a political act. Fittingly,
newly appointed Black female California Surgeon General Nadine Burke Harris has
identified preventing and addressing toxic
stress among children as one of her highest priority agenda items. She
notes that, far too often, “mental
trauma is considered unrelated to medical care”. This perception only reinforces the systemic
denial of mental health care to Black girls.
Bell was killed a stone’s throw away from where LAPD
officers gunned down 18 year-old Carnell Snell in the Westmont community near
Washington Prep High School in 2017. The corridor is still dominated by fast
food joints, storefront churches, 99 cent stores, and beauty salons. Pushing
back against the absence of culturally responsive spaces for youth of color in
Los Angeles, the Youth Justice Coalition
(YJC) and other activist groups pressed for the passage of a Youth Reinvestment
Act in the California Legislature. The 2019 Youth Reinvestment Grant fund
provides $37.3
million to fund “diversion programs & community-based services for youth at
risk of system involvement”. While the fund is a good start, it’s still a drop
in the bucket, which is why the National Center for Youth Law is asking that
the fund be boosted by another $100 million.
It is precisely because of the lack of educational, job training and
therapeutic facilities in communities like South L.A. that Black and Latinx
youth are at “greater risk” for becoming victims of violence and
system-involved. After a long battle
with city and county government, YJC was recently victorious in its efforts to
get an abandoned South L.A. jail facility converted to a new youth center for
its community offices. But, in most
neighborhoods of color, the lack of access to designated youth spaces, coupled
with high rates of criminalization and police suppression, make Black girls
especially vulnerable to street violence, sexual violence, and domestic and intimate
partner violence.
Speaking on the tragedy of Hannah’s killing last year,
Rashad Mays pleaded, “Imagine if it was your daughter that was taken. I’m asking the community to come forward and
help us out.” We owe it to Hannah and
all the other victims of “normalized” gun violence right here in our communities
to make their lives visible.
