A letter to Karon Blake

This post started as a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser. I have never written a letter to her before and regret that. As a D.C. elected official, paid by my tax dollars, tasked and bound to Oath with serving and protecting my interests as a D.C. resident, I am responsible for giving feedback and redressing any grievance. The challenge is, how do I communicate so much in one letter? I took a break to write another letter to address the trauma that has been steadily building up inside of me as I face, year after year, unspeakable tragedies and crises in my neighborhood. A neighborhood decimated by policy neglect and sheer corruption of Office exposes how little Black DC residents without specific resources matter politically.

My trauma therapist and anti-Violence specialist recommended that I write a letter to my recently murdered neighbor since I could not get this child out of my mind. Somehow I could communicate with a child I had never met who was no longer alive much easier than my living Mayor. I'm sure it's because this child never represented any threat to me, and I mourn the loss of his life. I empathize with his family, and suffering has bonded us. So now, I offer this letter to the Mayor and all my D.C. elected officials:

My Dearest Karon Blake, It feels so strange writing to you because I 've never even seen you. Your murder on January 7, 2023, is the only reason I know you ever existed. Shot to death at 4 am, right around the corner from where I live. That morning, I woke up at 2:30 am with my heart pounding, and I couldn't get back to sleep because I was so disturbed. Fear surrounded me, and I didn 't know why, but it's clear why now.

Blake yelled, “I’m sorry” and “I am only 12” numerous times as the suspect fired in his direction, according to court documents that described surveillance video.

Somehow, our lives connected just before you had your last breath. I wish I had the power to turn back the hands of time and had a chance to relive that pre-dawn dark winter morning. I would fight for your life. I would throw on my clothes, run outside, and scream your name long before I hit the corner at Michigan Ave and Quincy Street. I would shout your name, "KARON BLAKE!". not caring if I woke others nearby. I'd scream before my 41 yr old neighbor Jason Lewis came out of his home with his loaded gun pointed at children. Your life, your breath, and the blood pumping to your heart are much more critical to D.C. than any property or vigilante sting operation to catch car thieves and vandals.

Young Master, now Ancestor Blake, please know that I wouldn't care what you and your two companions were doing at that hour of the night and don't care if you were doing things that triggered Jason Lewis to believe he had the right to kill you, unarmed, and shoot at another unarmed child. I don 't care even if you, too, were careless and felt entitled to be free to do what children do at the wee hours of 4 am while adults sleep.

Please know that adulthood is strange. I wish you had a chance to become an adult to experience what I know now that I am blessed to have lived long enough to become an Elder. I wish you had a chance to become enraged by what politicians do once they get into Office and take their Oath to protect and serve us. You would realize, as I have, how dangerous and disappointing adults can be, especially when we have secrets to hide, and we want to fool others to get what we want and keep what we have. You would understand how corrupt and hypocritical Mayors, like Mayor Bowser, can be at critical times. They take away funding for the programs that help kids in D.C. stay away from trouble, Programs that I had when I was your age in Paul Jr High School and programs that Mayor Marion Barry fought for.

Karon, at 13, I may have died a very violent death running with the kids that ended up in the criminal justice system if it weren't for the funding of programs that gave me so much art, music, mentors, recreation centers, sports, theater, and summer jobs I loved with people I loved. I worked in D.C. every summer since I was 11 years old. It gave me a way out of the criminal things that began in my Elementary school as gangs formed and we were forced and coerced to choose and do things we knew were wrong.

I was much more fortunate than you when I was your age. The local Black DC politicians came up during the hard bloody times of the Civil Rights Era. They would never be able to be elected if they did what Muriel Bowser and Kenyan McDuffie continue to do, further harm vulnerable Black children, especially the ones whose parents come from the lowest incomes living in redlined neighborhoods, forcing Black DC children right into what we now call the D.C. Public School to prison pipeline.

Young Master Ancestor Karon Blake, I wish I could teach you what I learned by living longer than you and how important it is to know who your ANC Commissioner, Ward Councilmember, and Mayor are, even as a 13-year-old child. These three elected public officials make decisions that could end or save your life, help you get the best education, or keep you from getting the best education. They make decisions that could determine where your parents and grandparents can live, what services you and your family have access to, and if your neighborhood is safe and protected or targeted, neglected, and sold off on an auction block for corporate interests. These things never entered my mind at 13, and I didn't care and assumed my parents were the only ones who had to. Now I know I was wrong. I am positive you would still be alive if Mayor Bowser and Kenyan McDuffie had implemented the NEAR Act instead of misappropriating and mismanaging the funding while never giving our neighbors a chance to act in a way that would protect your life.

Still, nothing harms me as much as the grief over the loss of your life. In that grief, I found my inner rage when Kenyan McDuffie and the Mayor did not even face the grief expressed publicly by your family members and so many others at the Emergency community meeting Zachary Parker, our brand new Ward 5 Council member, called to honor your family as we publicly faced and voiced questions and the foul play that surrounded the details of your murder.

There is so much more I feel so moved to teach you and tell you about, but I won't make this letter any longer. I'm keeping you and your family in my prayers. I enjoy writing to you because of the beautiful things my grandmother taught me about death; she called the afterlife the Upper Room. My only brother Eddie was 17 when he died. Eddie was my best friend in the world, so I do practice talking to those important to me after they die. I hope your Spirit gains a rest in POWER within the Circle of Ancestors that we will all join one day. Until then, may your memory be a BLESSING to Brookland, to DC, and to all. Love always, Niki.