Latasha's Song Can Still Be Heard

The short original Netflix documentary “A Love Song For Latasha”. In its twenty minute running time, what you get is a powerful, heart breaking look at the young girl, who at fifteen years old, had her life cut tragically short. While it would have been easy to focus entirely on the circumstances surrounding her untimely death, what we got with this short film was an insight into the young girl herself.

Latasha Harlins was a straight A, honor roll student, with very big plans for her life. She had plans to become a lawyer, to own businesses where kids could walk in without being stared at or be accused of crimes they didn’t commit. She always wanted to start programs for young people to help receive their education, support, and simply not slip through the cracks of the system. Upon watching this film, those who knew her who spoke in the film, there’s no doubt in my mind this young woman would have become something special, and very easily someone who could have changed many aspects of our world. Maybe not every single thing wrong with the world, but she would have been a big face in the movement towards the treatment of those in the black community, the injustices the black community have had to endure on a daily basis. If Latasha Harlins was still alive, I personally think many things would be different. Of course, we will never know this for sure, but it’s a safe and fair assumption based on how committed she was to receiving an education. That alone speaks volumes.

Latasha Harlins was killed on March 16th 1991, at a liquor store where she was trying to buy a bottle of orange juice. A bottle of orange juice the store owner accused her of trying to steal. In the security footage, you see a struggle as the owner tries to take Harlins’s back pack. Latasha Harlins turned around, trying to walk away from the situation, when she was shot in the back of the head by the store owner, the two dollars she intended pay for the orange juice with still in her hand. Her death took place thirteen days after the beating of Rodney King, who had been pulled over for a traffic violation only to be brutally attacked by four officers with batons. His beating had also been recorded, a recording which was eventually seen by the everyone, just as Latasha’s death had been recorded and seen. Both of these events, and the trials that followed, would spark a flame that to this day I don’t believe has been put out, and will NEVER be put out unless there are some major changes made in the systems with how crimes against unarmed people within the black community have changed.

Latasha Harlins’s killer was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter, a conviction that often comes with a sixteen year prison sentence. Latasha’s killer was only order to serve four hundred hours of community service, pay a five hundred dollar fine, and served no jail time. After this, the cops who assaulted Rodney King were acquitted. These events, along with many that came before them but didn’t get anywhere close to the coverage they deserved, resulted in the L.A. Riots of 1992, where people protested, and others took to damaging property.

What can be learned from “A Long Song For Latasha” is this: she was a fifteen year old girl, a human being, who MATTERED, just like anyone else. Her dreams MATTERED. She deserved so much more than to die over a senseless argument over a bottle of orange juice. This little girl MATTERED. And even though she isn’t with us now, her story, and her death MATTER. We need to actually learn from these egregious mistakes of the past, and do better. That’s all I want; for us to do better, to not have children die, especially something as ridiculous as a bottle of orange juice.

We’re seeing history repeat itself with the protests which resulted from the barbaric death of George Floyd. While I can acknowledge the man had a criminal record that was very disturbing, he was still a human being, who didn’t deserve to die the way he did. What I can hope for is that we can take what we’ve learned, what we’ve seen, and this time of stillness to actually move to make some positive changes towards how the black community is treated from this day forward. I don’t know how all of that will happen or how long it will take to happen, but it needs to happen, and it needs to happen now.