Race/Related: The Quiet Casualties of Black Lives Matter

Plus: A Report on Diversity at The Times View in [Browser]( | Add nytdirect@nytimes.com to your address book. [The New York Times]( [The New York Times]( Saturday, March 31, 2018 [Join Race/Related »]( Black Stress Matters [Police officers and protesters faced off in Sacramento on Thursday. Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old unarmed man, was shot by the police in his grandmother’s backyard in Sacramento on March 18.] Police officers and protesters faced off in Sacramento on Thursday. Stephon Clark, a 22-year-old unarmed man, was shot by the police in his grandmother’s backyard in Sacramento on March 18. Max Whittaker for The New York Times [John Eligon]( [John Eligon]( I have spent plenty of time over the past few years talking with Black Lives Matter activists about their work. The conversations are usually about things like systems and policies, strategies for winning change and the path forward. In these moments, just as when we see them taking to the streets in protest, activists come off as strong and resolute, unflappable and resilient. But there is a quieter reality of activism: the mental and emotional hardship of the work, and the resulting stress and depression that sometimes make it difficult to even get out of bed. Though this is not often talked about in the open, it is evident to anyone paying close attention. Over the past two years at least five prominent activists have died. Two of them were suicides. One was from a heart attack at age 27. The other two were homicides, which speaks to the pressures of activism, too — the work they do often antagonizes the police, and so many are wary of turning to the state for protection. We decided to explore this topic after Muhiyidin Moye, an activist in Charleston, [was fatally shot in New Orleans]( last month. What led activists to die young and how were those deaths affecting people in the movement? I knew right away that reporting out this story would be challenging. Activists are often wary of sharing with mainstream news outlets, feeling that they have been burned in the past and their messages have been twisted. One activist even expressed concern that my article would sow divisions within the movement. And talking about mental health is not easy or comfortable for many people to begin with. [Ashley Yates, a Black Lives Matter organizer and activist, has shared candid depictions on social media of the toll her work has taken.] Ashley Yates, a Black Lives Matter organizer and activist, has shared candid depictions on social media of the toll her work has taken. Christie Hemm Klok for The New York Times One of the first people to whom I reached out was Ashley Yates. I had developed a relationship with her since her days as an activist in Ferguson, Mo., after the police killing of Michael Brown. Ms. Yates didn’t hold back with me: She has already been open on social media about her struggles within the movement and had a very public falling out with its leaders. Ms. Yates had also written about how she was affected by the hospitalization of Erica Garner, the 27-year-old daughter of Eric Garner. [Ms. Garner]( hadÂ]( heart attack last year and later died]( while she was in a coma, Ms. Yates shared an image on Instagram of a text message exchange in which Ms. Yates encouraged Ms. Garner to not be bothered by people talking negatively about her on social media. “I have to make clear just how invisible some of the most heinous violence we experience is,” Ms. Yates wrote in the Instagram post in December. “How we are often left alone on the front lines grown cold because media and figureheads move on to the next hot story.” I asked Ms. Yates, who moved to Oakland a couple of years back to work as an activist full time, if she ever had the urge to just say forget it, and take her college degree and go into a traditional profession. Of course she did, she told me, especially when you see someone dropping dead at 27 of a heart attack. “It’s absolutely scary,” said Ms. Yates, 32. “It’s enough to make you want to quit.” But more than just reflecting on the difficulties of activism and the trauma that comes with it, Ms. Yates ventured into another area that I had not thought about: self-care. As it turns out, taking care of yourself is a big issue in the present movement, unlike in times past. There are trained “healers” in communities who run workshops and do private counseling for activists. Ms. Yates started seeing a therapist about a year ago. She also talked about the things that seem small but can make a big difference for her: going to the ocean, putting her toes in sand, remembering to eat, taking time to talk with her friends about things that have nothing to do with activism. Some of these might seem obvious, but for those immersed in the work, that’s not always the case. As one reader commented on the story, young activists should temper their expectations for immediate results “and put their personal health first in order to reduce their toxic levels of stress.” Because, he added, “stress can kill; emotionally and spiritually, as well as physically.” [They Push. They Protest. And Many Activists, Privately, Suffer as a Result.]( By JOHN ELIGON At least five activists pushing social justice agendas have died over the last two years, drawing attention to the pressures they face. [Anatomy of a Los Angeles Police Shooting]( [A flier calling for justice for Anthony Weber was posted near the apartment complex where he was killed in South Central Los Angeles.]( A flier calling for justice for Anthony Weber was posted near the apartment complex where he was killed in South Central Los Angeles. Kayla Reefer for The New York Times [Tim Arango]( [Tim Arango]( LOS ANGELES — John Weber was rummaging through old boxes the other day, looking for memories, when he found a bunch of old baseball and flag football trophies. He has kept other things, too, like a neatly pressed R.O.T.C. uniform, a reminder that he once hoped to steer his son, Anthony, to the Army and away from the streets. “It’s all I’ve got left,” he said. On Super Bowl Sunday, after rooting for the Patriots against the Eagles, Anthony Weber left a friend’s apartment to go for dinner with his girlfriend at The Kickin’ Crab, her favorite restaurant. Around the same time, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department received a 911 call. A black man with a gun was threatening a motorist. Soon, Anthony — a mixed race 16-year-old, was dead in a darkened courtyard of a run-down apartment complex, with no gun anywhere around. Nearly two months later, with questions still unanswered, the spot is a makeshift memorial of candles, balloons, flowers, photographs, and placards from rallies. “Jail killer cops!” reads one. “No gun = no alibi = murder,” reads another. Long before police shootings and protests in Ferguson, Mo., or Sacramento focused America’s attention on how the police treat black men, Los Angeles was a byword for police brutality and racism. Years of effort after the 1991 beating of Rodney King, the riots that followed, and later, the Rampart police corruption scandal, have succeeded in changing the culture of policing in the city to a great extent. There is less overt racism, many people in Los Angeles say, and police forces have been reshaped to better reflect the city’s diversity. Yet to Anthony Weber’s family, to the Black Lives Matter activists drawn to the case, and to many residents of South Los Angeles, an area still rife with crime and poverty, his death and its aftermath are signs of how much more needs to change on their streets, and how the police can be too quick to use deadly force against black men. “We are light-years from where we were, and light-years from where we need to be,” said Connie Rice, a civil rights lawyer who began suing the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1990s, and lately has worked with the department on new approaches to policing. [[Read more]( [Stephon Clark Was Shot 8 Times Primarily in His Back, Family-Ordered Autopsy Finds]( By FRANCES ROBLES AND JOSE A. DEL REAL A lawyer for the family said the findings proved that Mr. Clark could not have been moving in a threatening fashion toward Sacramento officers when they opened fire. [Baton Rouge Officer Is Fired in Alton Sterling Case as Police Release New Videos]( By RICHARD FAUSSET The disciplinary actions are the first serious consequences for both men after state and federal officials declined to bring criminal charges. ADVERTISEMENT I have deep sympathy for the concern that genetic discoveries could be misused to justify racism. But as a geneticist I also know that it is simply no longer possible to ignore average genetic differences among “races.”  David Reich in “[How Genetics Is Changing Our Understanding of ‘Race’](  Diversity and Inclusion at The Times [The New York Times building in Midtown Manhattan.] The New York Times building in Midtown Manhattan. Jeenah Moon for The New York Times The Times has reported at length on issues surrounding diversity, but we are also increasingly focused on how to foster diversity and inclusion within our own company. Journalism as an industry has long been disproportionately white and male. And the high-pressure, competitive nature of our business does not naturally lead to a welcoming workplace. In our inaugural public report on diversity and inclusion, we provide an overview of our efforts to build a more diverse and inclusive culture at The Times. And, for the first time, we are sharing detailed data about the ethnic and gender composition of our staff members — data that we intend to update and make public annually. We believe releasing this data on a yearly basis will make us accountable to the public — and ourselves — for improvement. And we hope that in doing so we can contribute to the broader conversation about equality and representation in journalism. [[Read the full report]( Connect With Us. Join us on Wednesdays as we examine topics related to race and culture on The Times’s[Facebook page](. Our correspondents John Eligon and Rachel Swarns spoke this week with Brittini Gray and Ashley Yates about the pressures activists face. [[Watch]( Like Race/Related? Tell us what you’d like to see by writing to racerelated@nytimes.com, and help us grow by forwarding our newsletter to five of your friends and have them sign up at:  [( [‘He Is Not a Victim’: Our Austin Bomber Coverage Explained]( By THE NEW YORK TIMES Times journalists responded to some of the most common questions received from readers about our coverage of the bomber. [‘When I See Racial Disparities, I See Racism.’]( After we wrote last week about a sweeping new study of income inequality in the United States, we heard from hundreds of readers. Here is a selection of their questions, with responses from reporters, authors of the study and experts in the field. ADVERTISEMENT Editor’s Picks We publish many articles that touch on race. Here are a few you shouldn’t miss. [‘I Know I Will Be Criticized’: The Latino Evangelical Who Advises Trump on Immigration]( By LAURIE GOODSTEIN Rev. 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[Linda Brown, Symbol of Landmark Desegregation Case, Dies at 75]( By NEIL GENZLINGER She was a child whose exclusion from a whites-only school led to the 1954 Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education. [Arnold R. Hirsch, Historian of Housing Segregation, Dies at 69]( By SEWELL CHAN An inquiry into urban unrest led to “Making the Second Ghetto,” a chronicle of systemic bias in the wake of the second Great Migration of Southern blacks. P.S.: If a friend forwarded this to you, you can sign up to get our newsletter yourself [here](. A full collection of our articles can be found [here](. We want to hear from you. We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to [racerelated@nytimes.com](mailto:racerelated@nytimes.com?subject=Newsletter%20Feedback). Want more Race/Related? Follow us on Instagram, where we continue the conversation about race through stunning visuals. 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