Just a few blocks away from Black Lives Matter Plaza lies Union Station, where dozens of tents line the streets, sheltering the city’s disproportionately Black homeless population.
I stare and they still smile as they face a street that tells them their Black lives matter, even though it is too late.
There is no value in street names or murals telling us Black lives matter, when policies and racial disparities say quite the opposite.
In New York City, notorious for stop-and-frisk and the police murder of Eric Garner, Mayor Bill de Blasio plans to name a "Black Lives Matter" street in every borough.
I walk away from the plaza filled with frustration, at a crossroads of the streets telling Black lives we do not matter yet murals echoing the opposite.
