Nine Blocks from Home

Just read the sad, sad New York story about the murder of Tiesha Sargeant. I remember M being all shook up the night the news broke, as we had also just moved to Brooklyn, not far from where she was shot, also live on the second floor, etc. I admit at the time, it was 'reassuring' to learn her boyfriend was dealing pot, as that was a way of rationalizing the story as being about someone else. Oh you know, hang out with that type and you know what happens ...

Reading the article, I feel a little ashamed about my first reaction. I'll be the first to say I don't know what really happened. But the whole set up of the story, about the erotic tragedy of black upward mobility, the good girl undone by the bad boy from across the tracks (who had a kid by another woman and wore his hair in DREADS), just seems too convenient.

So apparently there were 'clouds of pot smoke' at their housewarming. I am sure there were drugs aplenty in the Upper East Side prep school environment Tiesha was sent to on scholarship, but no one blames Brearley for setting her on a path ending in her murder. The drug war is the most racist thing about the U.S. right now, and the whole angle on this story, demonizing the boyfriend for selling the pot that a lot of the tut-tutting readers smoke is a little rich.