Blacks make up a higher rate of those killed at the hands of law enforcement, and the reactions of the black community, as Balko identifies, are more visceral for reasons historically familiar in our culture. The destructive elements and misguided actions of the violent protests (from people we do not know) divide us. They do not symbolize the rage of peaceful protests and the words of wisdom representative of the black leaders of our nation and other leaders who support them and truly want peaceful justice, a remembrance for the life of George Floyd, and a spiritual accounting of all people in our nation [2].

What Balko does not speak to is the overwhelmingly gender demographic-data at the heart of these deaths that must be acknowledged if we hope to do more than heal wounds but exercise a spiritual awakening that unites us in common purpose.

Males make up 96% of all fatal shootings at the hands of law enforcement since 2015 according to data from the Washington Post. For every 22 boys and men killed at the hands of law enforcement, 1 girl or woman is killed. These deaths only include fatal shootings and do not include the tragic choking of Mr. Floyd and other such killings. Deaths associated with tasers, automobile chases that end in fatalities, and other causes of death are not as easily accessible after reviewing several sources and the methods used to list fatalities. However, it’s clear that boys and men contend with social and cultural forces that place them in devastating situations.

Complicating elements of fatal shootings involving law enforcement is the death of law enforcement officers serving their communities. Families of officers, particularly wives, have expressed their concern and started the National Police Wives Association, ("a non-profit charitable organization dedicated to supporting law enforcement spouses") and at least one other organization, Police Wives of America.

There have been at least 209 law enforcement officers fatally shot in the last four years and 95% of those are male according to data from the Officer Down Memorial Page. (Men account for 88% of law-enforcement officers in the U.S.)

Understanding racial sensitivities is a crucial component of a troubling, systemic problem with a common male victim-narrative. Reporting continues to overlook gender elements. The same type of reporting practices regarding coronavirus specifically identifies race even though men-of-color and all men need greater resources specifically directed toward them as they make up 60-70% of COVID-19 deaths nationally and internationally. Dr. Keisha N. Blain, an assistant professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, calls needed attention to race, COVID-19, and policing, yet does so in a way all too familiar with such reporting. Dr. Blain discusses the ways the virus "ravages black communities at a disproportionately higher rate than other racial groups, [as] black people must continue to contend with another threat: police violence." But to be more accurate, it's boys and men and more specifically black boys and black men.

Parsing out the male-victim narrative remains absent from the reporting in ways that must become more present. We must applaud Dr. Blain for her lessons in the article that speaks to the history of policing prior to, during, and after the civil rights movement. Such lessons can reach the collective conscience of all races, but still settle more deeply into the souls of black Americans in ways that need to reach the souls of all peoples.