This makes me so sad for our city. And, all the hand-wringing about the downstream effects of structural racism and how that leads to this type of violence is pissing me off.

Every group of non-white people in the world has experienced exploitation and racism at the hands of white people. I’m an Indian-American woman, and it’s hard to overstate the horrifying, multigenerational consequences of British colonialism on India and on people of Indian descent.

But, I don’t see giant groups of Indian kids wantonly jumping on top of cars and shooting people in downtown Chicago, and then turning it around and blaming it on the downstream effects of “oppression.” I guarantee you if something like this happened with the Indian-American community, no community leader would issue a statement asking people not to demonize them due to the downstream effects of colonialism.

The existence of racial trauma doesn’t give any person a free pass to act like a sociopathic little asshole. Giving people a free pass on violent behavior because of their race is another form of racism. The vast majority of Black and Brown youth in Chicago do not engage in wanton criminal behavior, and it’s patronizing to suggest that these individuals don’t deserve the face severe consequences for their actions.