Guns, Fear, Racism and the Shooting of Ralph Yarl

The shooting of Ralph Yarl was a terrible incident of racist violence, but must be understood in the broader context of the guns-fear-racism nexus that permeates much of American culture and society

Gun violence in the US occurs so frequently, that it is difficult to process each shooting that gets national attention. Those shootings, of course, represent only a small fraction of America’s gun problem. Of the many recent such shootings, one has been particularly striking for me. Mercifully, there was only one victim and it is likely Ralph Yarl will…