“You can’t even look me in the eye right now, but you can stab my fucking son in the heart.”

Quite frankly, I am glad Karmelo did not give you the courtesy of looking you in the eye. Because even there, even in that courtroom, even with a Black boy sitting before the machinery of the state, you still wanted control. You still wanted access to his body and deference. You still wanted his face, his gaze, his submission, his performance of shame. You wanted him to lift his eyes and meet yours so you could decide what you saw there. Remorse. Defiance. Fear. Guilt. Whatever story your grief needed to tell.

But Karmelo owed you none of that.

Not his eyes. Not his body. Not his obedience. Not his emotional performance. Not one more piece of himself.

There was power in him not looking at you. There was refusal in it. There was survival in it. There was an ancient knowing in it. Because Black people know what it means when a white man demands eye contact from a Black child after already deciding what that child is. We know the old ritual. We know that sometimes “look at me” is not a request for humanity. It is a demand for surrender.

And Karmelo did not surrender!

He sat there and withheld the one thing you still thought you were entitled to command. Maybe that is what enraged you most. Not just that Austin is dead. Not just that Karmelo is alive. But that this Black boy would not complete the scene for you. He would not bow his head the way you wanted. He would not offer his face as a screen for your rage. He would not let you turn his eyes into another courtroom exhibit.

And maybe, at an ancestral level, he already knew.

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