Copyright © 2023 by James Spooner and Chris L. Terry, Excerpt from the story Glow by Camille A. Collins in the anthology BLACK PUNK NOW III. I was fourteen and in eighth grade, the very same age as George Stinney, when I learned he was the youngest person ever sentenced to death in America. He was so small the electric chair helmet slid around his head and they had to make adjustments before blasting the poor kid to kingdom come. The idea that a young Black boy would have brutally killed two white girls for no reason must have been just as preposterous to the people who wrongfully charged him as it was to anyone else with a single brain cell—but, as I wrote in my first history paper, “being Black means being expendable in America.” I got a D on the paper. My history teacher, Mrs. Sneed, asked to see me after class. “It’s a solid paper, Essie, but I just can’t get past the last sentence. It’s a very jarring remark and we talked so much about grounding things in fact. Please keep facts, dates, and statistics in mind next time. I think you’ll be much happier with…