‘Tokenized, silenced’: Black and Latino organizers still feel marginalized by gun violence prevention groups

Gun violence disproportionately affects Black and brown people, but some activists from those communities report being marginalized by peers

Nurah Abdulhaqq was 12 when she lost a family friend to gun violence - an experience that inspired her to make a change. After the student-led protests against gun violence in 2018 following the school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school in Parkland, Florida, she got involved as a violence prevention organizer. I knew that I could lend a different perspective as someone who not only has lost someone close to me to gun violence, but who also lives in an area affected by the school-to-prison pipeline and poverty," she said.

But instead she often found her viewpoint sidelined, especially in the large national-facing violence prevention groups she found herself interacting with, said the Atlanta-based activist, now 19. There was really not a discussion on Black and brown youth," she said, or of the fact that gun violence has been the leading cause of death for Black male teenagers and young adults.