06/21/2026
There is something profoundly broken in a country where a child can be killed over something as small as a bottle of juice, a suspected shoplifting incident, or nothing at all—and we are still here, decades later, saying their names.
In 1991, 15-year-old Latasha Harlins was shot and killed over a $1.79 bottle of orange juice. That moment didn’t just take a young girl’s life—it exposed a truth about how Black children are seen, feared, and denied the grace of innocence.
More than 30 years later, the pattern hasn’t stopped.
14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton was chased and shot in the back after leaving a store. And now, in Mississippi, 1-year-old Kohen Kartier Wiley is dead after police opened fire on a vehicle over an alleged non-violent offense. A baby. In a car. In a parking lot.
Officers knew there was a child inside.
Let that sit with you.
A bottle of juice. A suspicion. A moment of assumption. And Black children pay with their lives.
This is not just about individual decisions—it’s about a culture that repeatedly treats Black life as disposable, where escalation comes faster than restraint, and where accountability too often comes too late, if at all.
These are not isolated tragedies. They are connected by a throughline of dehumanization, fear, and a system that fails to protect the most vulnerable.
We should not be this numb to it. We should not have to keep explaining why this is wrong.
Kohen Kartier Wiley should be alive. So should Latasha. So should Cyrus.
Say their names. Remember them. And refuse to accept a country where this continues to happen.
Rest in power, Kohen Kartier Wiley.
