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On Saturday, Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent at The Atlantic, articulated the sentiments of black mothers and fathers everywhere who live in an America where unarmed black teens can lawfully be killed because of the sheer fear their person evokes.

In a beautifully written, but disheartening op-ed, Coates wrote his response to the Michael Dunn verdict, which ended in a mistrial for the first-degree murder count:

I wish I had something more to say about the fact that Michael Dunn was not convicted for killing a black boy. Except I said it after George Zimmerman was not convicted of killing a black boy. Except the parents of black boys already know this. Except the parents of black boys have long said this, and they have been answered with mockery.

Jordan Davis had a mother and a father. It did not save him. Trayvon Martin had a mother and a father. They could not save him. My son has a father and mother. We cannot protect him from our country, which is our aegis and our assailant. We cannot protect our children because racism in America is not merely a belief system but a heritage, and the inability of black parents to protect their children is an ancient tradition.

The same heritage that contributed to the death of Jordan Davis is the same heritage that perpetuates the black fear that festers in America. It’s a fear writer Mikki Kendall knows all too well. On Wednesday, she created #StopBlackPanic to dismantle those American norms.

But what drove home the point that our black boys are being killed for an unreasonable fear fed by history, stereotypes and racism, was writer Jamie Nesbitt Golden’s hashtag, #DangerousBlackKids — an effort that challenged the criminalization of black children and confronts the dehumanization of blacks in America head on.

With endearing, adorable and powerful satire, Twitter users started sending in pictures of their black children playing the piano, reading books, and graduating college — images rarely, if ever, seen in the media.

The duality of the hashtag — which both showed the outrage black parents feel about racial profiling and fed positive images of black life to the public — was a direct response to the Dunn trial. It seemed to speak through Lucia McBath and Ron Davis, Jordan’s parents, and their frustration with facing a justice system that supports a flawed self-defense law. And in a way, it humanized Jordan and Trayvon Martin: something juries in both trials said was lacking.

And most importantly, #DangerousBlackKids did something America has failed to do for centuries — decriminalize black Americans and send the message that our lives matter too.

Take a look at some of our favorites:

SOURCE: Twitter

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