Two Sides - Understand Before You Blame

Much has been said about Karmelo Anthony and the decision to bring a knife to a track meet. But let’s be clear: this isn’t just about a knife or other weapon—it’s about survival.

Critics have been quick to condemn his actions, but where is the outrage when white students bring entitlement, unchecked aggression, and violence into schools? The double standard is glaring.

This case reflects a deeper reality—one that too many still refuse to confront. Karmelo is a Black teenager trying to survive in a world that has repeatedly shown him he’s on his own. Teachers, coaches, administrators, law enforcement, and the media have consistently failed to protect kids like him. He didn’t bring a knife to start a fight. He brought it because he knew what could happen if trouble found him—and he had no reason to believe anyone would step in to help.

The outrage over the presence of a blade at a track meet reveals more about society’s priorities than it does about his. Many remain silent about the threats he faces daily but are quick to condemn the precautions he took to stay alive. There’s more concern about his method of self-defense than about the culture of violence that made it necessary.

Have we asked what kind of environment drives a Black child to feel so unsafe that carrying a blade seems like the only option?

Have we asked what it’s like to walk into school every day knowing you might be called a racial slur, shoved, or treated as if you don’t belong?

Or are we only asking questions that uphold the belief that Black children must be perfect, passive, and silent—even in the face of real danger?

Let’s be honest: the real issue for many isn’t that Karmelo brought a knife. It’s that he was prepared to protect himself. And he lived.

That’s what makes people uncomfortable—not the knife, not the location, and not the tragedy itself. What unsettles them is that a Black boy refused to be a victim. He didn’t fold. He didn’t beg. He didn’t die. He defended himself—and survived.

This situation isn’t about school policies or safety protocols. It touches something far more primal in the American psyche: a long-standing fear that Black people might stop absorbing violence and start resisting it. That they might protect themselves—even if it comes at the cost of a white life.

That fear isn’t new. It’s the same fear that fueled slave patrols, lynch mobs, mass incarceration, and stand-your-ground laws that rarely seem to apply to Black children. It’s the fear that one day, the oppressed might stop turning the other cheek—that they might say, not today—and live.

The discomfort here isn’t really about the presence of a knife. It’s about who survived. It’s about a Black child who valued his own life enough to fight for it. Who dared to protect himself in a system that never protected him.

As a caring human witnessing this, I have to name what so many refuse to, Black self-defense threatens the racial order in this country. Because it says, you do not own me, you do not control me, and I will not die quietly.

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