My oldest back when he was 19 was pulled over for being visibly young and driving a brand new car more than 20 miles from where it registered after mid. Well, I, an essentially optimistic white male, was just joking at lunch today about the existential crisis implied by shouting into the void when your microphone is turned off in a conference call. I would say that the writer, Roxane Gay, is trying to make it sound like society killed her brother and wants us to believe that her happy, vital, extroverted brother, who refused to make himself small, was trembling inside. The son was raised by Joel, a single father, who appears to have had a successful business career. His sister says so in the Times and in her tweets. There is a scattered amount of pure speculation on the internet-including speculation that Joel was younger than 43.
But nothing else in the story or on the internet confirms that idea.
Althouse's choice makes it sound like brother Joel was killed by the cops. Hmmm.I think Althouse plucked a weird paragraph out of a loving sister's tribute to her 43 year-old deceased brother.
