This Country Will Break Our Hearts Again
But Ralph Yarl lives.
by Imani Perry
Apr 18, 2023
3 minutes
Thank God Ralph Yarl lives. He is an eldest child; he was picking up his siblings in Kansas City, Missouri. It was just an errand. And he got lost. And he went to the wrong house. A door. A shot—he collapsed—and then another. An 84-year-old man put a bullet in his young head. And Ralph Yarl stumbled for help to another home. He saved his own life. Clearly, this is an extraordinary child.
It is,speaking to the terror and grace of raising Black children in the United States, and people said to me, “The book is so prescient.” But there is no bad time for a book about Black fear and grace in the face of terror. The examples are seasonal, monthly, sometimes even weekly. By now, the world knows.
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