The original draft of this email was sent to Washington Post reporters Peter Hermann, Spencer Hsu and Nick Anderson, and copied to some of their editors, Post publisher Fred Ryan, and D.C.’s mayor, attorney general, police chief and all members of the City Council. By way of context, last Friday’s murder of a 16-year-old was, according to Post reporting, the 79th of 2021. That’s a 23 percent rise over last year, which itself “set a 16-year high” as killings rise “for the fourth consecutive year.”
Dear Peter, Spencer and Nick,
We all know divorce happens, and sometimes, depending on the splitting parents’ behavior and the judge’s custody decisions, one parent may end up reluctantly moving out of state but nevertheless making a concerted effort to remain an integral part of the children’s lives. And I suppose something like that may have been the case with the late Kassius-Kohn Glay’s parents [“Vigil marks 16-year-old’s fatal shooting in D.C.,” B1, June 2].
But it’s also possible — your story doesn’t say — that Juanita Culbreth and Kohn Glay never married and, though his comments suggest otherwise, Delaware resident Mr. Glay never had a lot to do with the raising of his son here in D.C.
Of course, to be fair, even Ward and June Cleaver can lose their little Beaver to random gun violence if he ends up in a car driven by Eddie Haskell in the wrong neighborhood at the wrong time. But regular Post readers who’ve learned to smell its particular brand of cultural relativism a mile away can’t help but think you’ve spun a bit of a narrative here wherein a bright, well-adjusted and promising kid was cruelly snatched, through know fault of his own, from a happy, healthy family, through no fault of its own.
As I say, all that’s possible. But it’s also possible that Kassius was yet another black kid growing up without a legitimate father figure in his life. And despite all his promise, he was ultimately confused about things a more firmly-fathered boy isn’t generally confused about and made some bad decisions that led to his violent death at a tragically young age.
In any case, I’ll bet the three of you lunch at the maskless restaurant of your choosing that the soulless punk(s) who murdered Kassius was sure as hell fatherless. And that The Post and the rest of the left continues to prattle on about systemic racism, killer cops or which dead kid was the “go-to person for. . . a laugh” among classmates while epidemic fatherlessness leaves large swaths of our city and other cities across the country in lawless chaos is utterly unconscionable.
Like the dog biting the mailman, vigils for fatherless dead black kids, sadly, aren’t really news anymore. What would truly be newsworthy is The Post showing some courage by forcing our city and our nation — politicians, police, clergy, academics and activists, business and civic leaders, musicians, athletes, artists and actors from Broadway to Hollywood — to start talking openly and honestly about the need and means necessary to restore the nuclear family as the center of a healthy, successful black culture.
Until such a restoration occurs, there’ll be more vigils and more ne’er-do-well dads sidling up too late, shamelessly sniffing around for a taste of a Ben Crump-negotiated settlement.
Darren McKinney, Washington, D.C.