Young Adult Authors React To #McKinney

On Sunday, June 7th, a video went viral on Twitter of a McKinney, Texas police officer who pulled a gun on unarmed teenagers at a pool party. He then threw a 14 year old girl in a bathing suit onto the ground, face down and rested his knee on her back to restrain her. This girl — who was black — along with the other black kids at the pool were being kicked out and had racial slurs uttered at them. A fight ensued which got the attention of the police. The whole thing was video taped by a 15 year boy who is white. Young adult author, Daniel José Older, had a few things to say:

I agree with Older. As a young adult author, you’re writing about teens and their experiences. Well, this is what black teenagers have to deal with. This isn’t a special case. Many black teens have died at the hands of the police such as Tamir Rice (12 years old) and Mike Brown (18 years old). This is what the segment of the young adult population is dealing with so it’s important that young adult authors are responding to it and that their young followers see it. I chose to take Older up on his challenge and have given you a sample of some tweets from young adult authors who’ve tweeted about the #McKinney incident. I’m sure there are more that have tweeted and that more will continue to tweet. They have the voices to signal boost this issue and I hope that more will do just that in the coming days.

https://twitter.com/Eve_Silver/status/607698544301121539

https://twitter.com/TrishDoller/status/607688293426335744

https://twitter.com/Bibliogato/status/607663743229509632

https://twitter.com/elloecho/status/607714207069544449

https://twitter.com/LaurenDeStefano/status/607694448613597185

Advertisements
Ardo Omer

Ardo Omer

Former WWAC editor. Current curmudgeon and Batman's personal assistant. Icon art by Diana Sim.

One thought on “Young Adult Authors React To #McKinney

  1. Thanks for compiling these tweets and thanks to Daniel Older for making the suggestion. The time for apathy and silence has long passed.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Close
Menu
WP Twitter Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com