On May 28, 2023, 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton was shot and killed outside a convenience store in Columbia, South Carolina. Last week, a jury returned a not guilty verdict in the case of the man who shot him. His family has said they will continue seeking accountability and healing. We mourn Cyrus Carmack-Belton and extend our deepest condolences to his family, loved ones, and community.
As an organization dedicated to preventing hate, violence, and division, we believe moments like this require communities to listen deeply to one another and resist efforts to turn grief into hostility.
We hear what communities are expressing in the wake of this verdict. For many people, particularly in Black communities, this case is inseparable from a much larger and longstanding concern: that Black children are too often perceived as threats, pursued, and harmed before anyone stops to ask whether that fear was warranted. Those concerns deserve to be heard with empathy and compassion.
Many community members have also drawn connections to earlier tragedies, including the 1991 killing of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins in Los Angeles. Those comparisons reflect longstanding wounds and unresolved conversations about race, fear, and accountability that continue to shape how many people are experiencing this moment.
We are also watching with concern as some voices attempt to use this tragedy to drive wedges between Black and Asian communities. We reject that framing. The grief of one community is not a weapon to be used against another. Communities facing bias, discrimination, and violence are strongest when they stand together, and most vulnerable when they are turned against each other.
We encourage all communities, including our Asian American partners and organizations, to engage this moment with honesty, compassion, and courage. Building trust requires showing up for one another not only when our own communities are targeted, but when our neighbors are grieving.
Communities do not heal through silence or through division. They heal through honest reckoning, sustained relationships, and the refusal to let any child's life be treated as expendable.
We invite communities, educators, faith leaders, and local organizations across the country to join conversations about race, safety, belonging, and solidarity, and to recommit to building places where every young person is valued, protected, and able to thrive.
Cyrus Carmack-Belton's life mattered. May his memory move us toward deeper understanding, stronger relationships, and a renewed commitment to one another.
To learn more about the history of Black and Asian solidarity, and the power of cross-racial unity, please continue reading these posts from the NAACP Columbia SC Branch, Asian Americans Advancing Justice, and Stop AAPI Hate.
SAMPLE: Community Dialogue Toolkit
Not In Our Town | United Against Hate Navigating the Cyrus Carmack-Belton Verdict: A Guide for Community Conversations
Purpose
This toolkit is for educators, faith leaders, community organizers, and local officials who want to create space for honest, constructive conversation in the aftermath of the Cyrus Carmack-Belton verdict. It is not designed to reach a predetermined conclusion. It is designed to help communities move from reaction to reflection, and from reflection to relationship.
Before You Facilitate
Hold these things together:
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Grief is real and legitimate. Don't rush past it.
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Anger is information. It points to something that needs attention.
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Division is a choice. Communities can make a different one.
Know your room. Is your group predominantly from one community or multiple? Adjust the opening accordingly. A room of Black parents needs to feel heard before it can engage in dialogue. A mixed-community room needs clear shared agreements before difficult history enters the conversation.
You do not need to have answers. Your role is to create conditions for honest exchange, not to adjudicate facts or assign blame.
Session Structure (90 minutes)
Opening (10 minutes) Welcome and shared agreements. Suggested agreements:
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Speak from your own experience
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Listen to understand, not to respond
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Make space, take space
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Stay curious about perspectives different from your own
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What is said here stays here; what is learned here leaves here
Grounding (10 minutes) Read aloud: "Cyrus Carmack-Belton was 14 years old. He was shot and killed outside a convenience store in Columbia, South Carolina, on May 28, 2023. His family has said: 'He stole nothing. He was a child, and he was running for his life.'"
Invite one minute of silence. Then ask: What do you feel right now? Name it in one or two words.
Go around the room without comment or response.
Small Group Discussion (30 minutes) Divide into groups of 3–4. Use one or two of the following questions:
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When you first heard about Cyrus Carmack-Belton, what did you feel? What did you think?
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Have you or someone you love ever been perceived as a threat in a public space? What happened?
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What does this verdict mean to you, and what do you think it means to someone whose experience is different from yours?
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What do you wish people outside your community understood about how this moment feels?
Full Group Share (20 minutes) Invite one insight from each small group. Facilitator listens for themes without evaluating. Name what you're hearing: "I'm noticing themes of grief, fear, and a desire to be understood."
Turning Point (10 minutes) Ask the full group: What do we owe each other in moments like this one?
Let responses surface without debate.
Closing (10 minutes) Ask each person to complete one of these sentences:
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"One thing I'm taking with me from this conversation is..."
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"One thing I want to do differently because of this conversation is..."
Close with: "Communities do not heal through silence or through division. They heal through honest reckoning, sustained relationship, and the refusal to let any child's life be treated as expendable. Thank you for being here."
Facilitation Notes
If the conversation becomes heated: Slow down. Name what you observe: "I notice this is bringing up strong feelings. That makes sense. Let's take a breath and return to our agreements." Don't shut down emotion - redirect it toward listening.
If someone says something that others find hurtful: Don't erase it. Name it: "That landed differently for some people in the room. Can we stay with that for a moment?" Invite the speaker to say more and invite others to share their response.
If the conversation stalls: Return to the personal. Abstract debates about verdicts and laws go nowhere. Specific human experiences move people. Ask: "Can someone share something from their own life that connects to what we're discussing?"
If someone invokes Latasha Harlins or the 1992 Los Angeles uprising: Don't avoid it. Acknowledge it: "That history is real and it's part of why this moment carries so much weight. What do you think it means that we're still having these conversations more than 30 years later?"
Recommended Resources
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NIOT documentary archive: stories of communities that have faced hate and chosen solidarity
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A Long Way from Home: NIOT's framework for community healing after bias incidents
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Facing History and Ourselves: Race in America curriculum modules
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Teaching Tolerance / Learning for Justice: materials on race, identity, and belonging
SAMPLE: Solidarity Conversation Guide
Not In Our Town | United Against Hate Building Relationships Across Community Lines in a Difficult Moment
Why This Guide Exists
The death of Cyrus Carmack-Belton and the acquittal that followed have renewed painful questions about the relationship between Black and Asian American communities in the United States. Some voices are using this moment to deepen division. Others are calling for solidarity without doing the harder work of honest conversation.
This guide is for people who want to do that harder work, who believe Black and Asian communities have more in common than the forces of division want us to believe, and who are willing to sit with discomfort in order to build something real.
What This Guide Is Not
This is not a guide for debating the verdict. It is not a guide for assigning collective guilt. It is not a guide for pretending difficult history does not exist.
It is a guide for human conversation across lines of difference, in a moment when that conversation is both harder and more necessary than usual.
Historical Context: What Participants Should Know
Facilitators should be prepared to briefly introduce the following context, or provide it as a reading in advance:
The model minority myth and its function The "model minority" narrative, the idea that Asian Americans succeed through hard work and cultural values, has historically been used to pit Asian Americans against Black communities. It obscures the diversity within Asian American communities, erases structural barriers, and implies that Black poverty and inequality are cultural failures rather than the products of systemic racism. Understanding this history helps both communities see themselves as targets of the same system, rather than competitors within it.
Black-Asian solidarity: a real history Black and Asian American communities have a genuine history of coalition. Japanese Americans and Black civil rights leaders stood together during the civil rights movement. Asian American activists were central to the ethnic studies movement born from the Third World Liberation Front strikes in 1968-69, alongside Black students. The killing of Vincent Chin in 1982 drew Black civil rights leaders into solidarity with the AAPI community. These moments of coalition are part of the inheritance both communities share.
The Latasha Harlins killing and its aftermath In 1991, 15-year-old Latasha Harlins was shot and killed by a Korean American convenience store owner in Los Angeles after being accused of stealing orange juice worth $1.79. The store owner was convicted but served no jail time. The verdict, coming weeks after the videotaped beating of Rodney King, contributed to the conditions that led to the 1992 Los Angeles uprising, during which Korean American-owned businesses suffered devastating losses. Both communities carry wounds from that period that have never been fully addressed. The Cyrus Carmack-Belton case is bringing those wounds back to the surface for many people. This history does not determine what happens next. But ignoring it does not make it go away.
Conversation Structure (2 hours, mixed Black and Asian American participants)
Opening agreements (10 minutes) Use the same shared agreements from the dialogue toolkit. Add one: "We are here because we believe our communities' futures are connected. We don't have to agree on everything to believe that."
Round One: Our own experiences (30 minutes) In pairs, ideally one Black and one Asian American participant, discuss:
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What community did you grow up in? What did you learn, explicitly or implicitly, about people from the other community represented in this room?
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Have you ever had a meaningful relationship or experience that challenged those early impressions?
Pairs share one insight with the full group.
Round Two: This moment (30 minutes) Full group discussion:
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What feelings came up for you when you heard about Cyrus Carmack-Belton?
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What do you think people in the other community in this room are feeling that you might not fully understand?
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What do you wish they understood about what you are feeling?
Facilitator names themes without evaluating.
Round Three: History and wounds (20 minutes) Facilitator briefly introduces the Latasha Harlins context and the model minority myth. Then ask:
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What do you carry from that history, even if you weren't alive for it?
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What would it mean to actually reckon with it together, rather than around each other?
Round Four: What we owe each other (20 minutes)
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What does solidarity actually look like, not in theory, but in practice?
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What is one thing your community could do differently in moments like this one?
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What is one thing you personally are willing to commit to?
Closing (10 minutes) Each person completes: "One thing I'm taking from this conversation that I didn't have when I walked in is..."
Close with: "The grief of one community is not a weapon to be used against another. Building trust requires showing up for one another not only when our own communities are targeted, but when our neighbors are grieving. Thank you for doing that work today."
For Facilitators: Navigating Hard Moments
If a Black participant expresses anger toward Asian American communities: Do not redirect immediately. Acknowledge: "That anger is real and it comes from somewhere. Can you say more about where it comes from for you?" Then invite Asian American participants to respond, not to defend, but to listen and reflect.
If an Asian American participant becomes defensive: Name it gently: "I notice this is bringing up some defensiveness. That's understandable. Can we try to stay curious rather than defensive for a moment? What is the anger or pain in what you just heard pointing to?"
If someone raises the boycott, don't avoid it. Ask: "What do you think is driving that call? What need is it trying to meet? And are there other ways to meet that need that don't create new harm?"
If someone says anti-Blackness doesn't exist in Asian communities, don't argue. Ask: "What would it look like if it did exist? What would we expect to see?" Let the group work with the question.
If someone says Asian Americans are also victims of racism and therefore can't be held responsible: Acknowledge the truth in it: "That's true, and holding both things at once is exactly the work. How do we honor our own experiences of discrimination while also taking responsibility for the harm our communities can cause?"
Closing Commitments
Invite participants to identify one concrete next step:
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A conversation they will have
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An organization they will support or connect with
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A meeting or event they will attend
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Something they will read or share
Collect commitments if the group is willing. Follow up in 30 days.