Senseless killings diminish everyone’s lives

I want to thank Len Tantillo for fighting through his pain to introduce us to his young protégé, Duane Todman, who was killed (“Senseless death of hope,” May 31). I have been a longtime admirer of Tantillo’s historic paintings and, truth be told, if I had not seen that he authored the piece, I might have skipped right past it. As he coldly but accurately stated, just another grim statistic to be avoided.

I thank him for introducing us to this young man and giving us a sense of his passion, his talent and his potential. I want to thank him for making Todman real, for opening our eyes to the loss for all of us.

Joseph Stalin famously said that the death of one man is a tragedy while the death of millions is a statistic. Stalin was a ruthless dictator yet, unfortunately, he was not wrong.

The second half of that quote was likely part of his justification for mass executions. We can turn that evil inside out by focusing on the first half of the quote. Each individual death is a tragedy. Yes, Black Lives Matter but, more accurately, Each Black Life Matters.

Hopefully, someday, we can get to the point where we are colorblind and don’t need to be reminded that Every Life Matters. But we have much work to do – with our heads, with our hands and with our hearts. I thank Tantillo, for showing us one young man who did not get to fulfill his promise or make his contributions to society and reminding us that his senseless murder diminishes us all. Mark Kulzer Wynantskill