In her opinion column “Kevin Peterson Jr. didn’t have to die,” Ann Donnelly argued that Kevin Peterson Jr.’s death was the result of his “poor choices” (The Columbian, Jan 3). According to Donnelly, Peterson went to an “advantaged high school,” yet chose to sell drugs, rather than go to college. I don’t know what went into Peterson’s choices, but I do know that a college degree does not protect Black men from being hassled or shot in this country.
And what about these choices? The choice of our society to arrest and jail people for possession or sale of small quantities of drugs. The choice of police to arrest Black people for drug possession and sales, while largely ignoring the same behaviors when white people are involved (read “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander). The choice of police to waste time and public resources on entrapping small-time drug dealers. The choice by sheriff’s deputies, in this case, to shoot someone who may have committed a minor, nonviolent crime, rather than let him run away, to be arrested at a future time.
If we are going to blame a dead man for his “poor choices,” let us look at all of the choices that led to his death.
