Free Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives by Gary Younge Page B

how easily a picture of black youth, taken out of context, could be distorted in order to fit a stereotype.
    Tyler Atkins, for example, displayed one picture of himself in a black tux and white bow tie, holding a saxophone, and another of himself wearing a blue bandanna with his finger pointed to the camera in what could be the shape of a gun. The first was taken following a jazz concert in which he performed; the second was for a rap video he’d made for a school math project. “Had the media gained ahold of this picture, I feel it would be used to portray that I was in a gang, which is not true at all,” Atkins, seventeen, told the New York Times . 18 That sentiment was clearly felt by many; within two days the hashtag had been used 168,000 times. 19
    But even if it would be a mistake to read too much into someone’s social media output, it would be no less of a mistake to ignore it altogether, for it does, at the very least, tell a story of the image a person wants to project, and that itself can be revealing. And in the absence of any contact from the family, social media was the only way to find out more about Kenneth.
    Kenneth was a prolific but sporadic tweeter: in September he sent only one, the week before he died he sent one hundred. His Twitter feed largely reads like a mixture of the banalities for which social media hasbecome infamous—“Man I hate cold toilet seats”; “I hope they make a strong ass phone to the point when u drop it the screen dnt crack”—and the online swagger characteristic of young men with too much time on their hands. There are quite a few references to smoking marijuana—“The kush I’m smoking got me sneezing”; “I hate going to sleep high. I feel like its a waist [sic] of weed”—and a considerable amount of misogynistic cock-strutting: “if good pussy dnt make a nigga stay then nothin will”; “I dnt trust NO bitch PERIOD.” At times, his adolescence comes through. He’s clearly excited about his upcoming birthday, mentioning it three times in just a few days. And he publicly splits up and reconciles with his girlfriend in the same night—as only an adolescent could. Within four hours, he goes from “Love dnt live here nomore fuck the bullshit” to “If I’m single ima b single for a couple of years shit stressful” to “even doe we mad at each other buuuuuut [heartshape emoticon]” and finally to “Tough Love.”
    But what emerges most markedly (and what distinguishes his timeline from that of his peer group in almost any other Western country) is that his bragging goes beyond women and weed to weapons and death. In the seven months before he died, Kenneth lost three friends. A posting on October 2 reads, “4/5/13 R.I.P ReggieMac 7/21/13 R.I.P Frank 10/2/13 R.I.P Rockhead.” Frank, a seventeen-year-old who appears to have been killed in an accidental shooting in a Marriott parking lot during a Black Expo celebration, was apparently someone Kenneth was particularly close to. 20 Frank’s picture was the backdrop to his Twitter home page. “I miss Frank man y u take my nigga away from us,” he tweeted. And then a few weeks before he died, Kenneth tweeted, “Man it’s been 71 days since u left bro we miss u not a second go by u not on our mind but we gone keep the dream alive R.I.P @ImFrank_GMG .”
    That such a young person would be in the vicinity of so much death is shocking, but once you’ve read their tweets it’s not that surprising. Frank tweeted, just an hour before he was shot, “im one of da only yung niggas out here dats really thuggin and i could careless about catchin a murder charge.” A couple of days before Kenneth died he wrote, “Most niggas carry guns n act scared to use them.” A couple of days before thathe asked, “Am I wrong for popping him when he wanna take my life that shit ain’t right.” And a week earlier he’d quoted rapper Chief Keef: “I get gwop [money] now that bitch remember me I send shots now them niggas