Not Just Another Murder in South Los Angeles
Illustration for gawker
“There’s nothing remarkable about the way Robert Rodwell died. He died like most people who’ve been murdered in South Los Angeles, lost to the static of the city. The narrative is familiar: A young-to-middle-aged black man shot to death in an economically fractured neighborhood where liquor stores dot almost every corner. It is the story about the disposability of black life; the story of the moment when, as poet Claudia Rankine puts it, ‘the night darkens and the time shortens between where we are and where we are going.’”