Emmy-winning actress Sheryl Lee Ralph is proving it’s never too late to evolve — and she’s urging others to do the same.

Via a video shared on Instagram by The Black Media account, the “Abbott Elementary” star issued a public service announcement to her followers “of a certain age — over 40” about how younger generations should be respected.

“Some of the things you used to do and say when you were young, they’re not going to work right now, OK?” said Ralph, 67. “These children right about now, they want to be called by their name. They want to be respected with their pronouns.”

Acknowledging that those of us who grew up in earlier eras may struggle with reaching beyond the gender binary, Ralph made an apt analogy using non-traditional names that have also become popular in recent decades.

“Now, I know it might be hard for some of you to say, ‘Hey, Apple, how you doing?’” she noted, adding, “It might even be more difficult for some folks when maybe they don’t look like a ‘he’ or a ‘she’ to you, but they want to be called ‘they,’ ‘him,’ or ‘her.’”

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As Ralph indicated, it’s a matter of respect — but using gender-expansive language has deeper implications that also prove her points about the generational divides that often occur. According to the National Institutes of Health and recent studies, approximately 20% of millennials identify as LGBTQ, more than twice the rate of previous generations. Additionally, 56% of Gen Z participants, which NIH recognizes as “the most diverse generation in the US,” know at least one person who uses gender-neutral pronouns; a now relatively common occurrence compared to prior generations. 

Furthermore, approximately 0.5% of Americans — or an estimated 1.6 million people — currently identify as transgender or gender-nonconforming, according to a 2016 study from the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. One in five of those individuals is aged 13 to 17. With transgender youth diagnosed with mental health conditions at three to 13 times the rate of cis-hetero communities, even seemingly minor validation, like use of preferred pronouns, could potentially have a major impact on public health.

“Call them by their name, please. Don’t call them out of their name,” Ralph gently urged, driving the point home. “You know how you get when people call you out of your name, [so] don’t do it … Just try.”

Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve watched “The Temptations,” a mini-series that ran during my sophomore year of college in 1998 that chronicles the beginnings, successes and end of one of my favorite singing groups ever, The Temptations. The Temptations are, of course, the legendary Motown group that brought us some of Motown’s most-known classics like “My Girl,” “Ain’t Too Proud To Beg,” “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” “Ball of Confusion (That’s What The World Is Today),” and my personal favorite, “Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me),” among many, many others. You know songs by The Temptations even if you don’t know that you know songs by The Temptations. Their songs have been covered by a range of artists, featured in movies and sung by choirs. And if you are Black you absolutely know their version of “Silent Night.” It’s … The Temptations. 

The original lineup of the group is its most famous — David Ruffin, Eddie Kendricks, Paul Williams, Melvin Franklin and Otis Williams. And once the group had their issues with David Ruffin, Dennis Edwards joined and that six is who most of us know and can name by heart. “The Temptations” mini-series stayed on repeat in my house once it came out on VHS. My Spelman sister bought me the VHS, and I let that tape rock until that tape popped. And then I got the DVD once we all moved past VCRs. Between “The Five Heartbeats” and “The Temptations,” I probably watched one or the other every single day for years, and I’m not exaggerating. 

“The Temptations” took on a life of its own when social media put the world in a chokehold. There are several scenes in the film that are perfect for visually expressing any number of human situations. One of the internet’s favorites, though, is where Otis Williams (Charles Malik Whitfield) and Melvin Franklin (D.B. Woodside) go speak to David Ruffin (Leon) about his shenanigans and why they’re putting him out of the group. Otis points out that nobody is above the group and that nobody is coming to see David, they’re coming to see The Temptations to which David responds, “Ain’t nobody coming to see you, Otis!” Those seven words have become legend. As a point of note, Otis Williams (the actual member of The Temptations) is one of the executive producers of the mini-series. 

I watched the series again (it’s really just a movie at this point) because it had been a while, and when it got to that scene, I laughed as I always do but then I had a realization: If you are going to see The Temptations at this point, you are actually going to see Otis since he is the last surviving member — at age 82 — of the original lineup of The Temptations. Paul Williams died in 1973. David Ruffin died in 1991 followed by Eddie Kendricks in 1992. Melvin Franklin passed away in 1995. I would imagine those ’90s were really rough on Otis and all fans of the group. Dennis Edwards would eventually pass away in 2018, leaving Otis Williams to currently be the last living original member and one of the reasons you’d want to see The Temptations. 

Music

Of course, they’ve had tons of lineup changes with members in and out of the group; they’ve been touring for six decades now. But all of the people that were the draw on the vast majority of the songs that we know and love from The Temptations canon, well, Otis is the only person still alive on those records. I’m not saying he outlived everybody else out of spite, but I am saying that Otis’ long game is impressive. Especially when the mini-series was released, Otis and Dennis were the only guys left. He essentially had to outlive Dennis for another 20 years just to be able to say, “Finally, they’re coming purely to see me, Otis.” 

By all accounts, Otis Williams seems like a great chap. I’ve listened to countless interviews with him, and he’s a great storyteller and speaks highly of all of the members of the group. But I wonder if he ever, in the quiet of a room by himself before they go on stage, says to himself, “They’re coming to see Otis tonight.” I know I would. Perhaps he has good genes. Perhaps he has eaten healthy for decades and that’s kept him alive. I’m sure it’s a combination of luck, healthy habits and the life he’s chosen to lead. But after watching Michael Jordan’s documentary, “The Last Dance” where we learned about the supreme competitiveness and pettiness of Michael Jordan, you do have to wonder if, on occasion, these guys whose talent and drive prove they’re built different have points to prove and can’t rest until they do. 

Sure, “Ain’t nobody coming to see you, Otis” is a line from a series, but it took on a life of its own. I couldn’t tell you how many times I’ve said it to people I know and random strangers. It’s part of Black pop culture. I wonder if Otis didn’t outlive them all just to prove that David was wrong. Who knows if David ever said that (save for Otis)? Either way, Otis William is still around, touring and performing and if you are going to see The Temptations in 2024 …

… you are definitely going to see Otis. 

Panama Jackson is a columnist at theGrio and host of the award-winning podcast, “Dear Culture” on theGrio Black Podcast Network. He writes very Black things, drinks very brown liquors, and is pretty fly for a light guy. His biggest accomplishment to date coincides with his Blackest accomplishment to date in that he received a phone call from Oprah Winfrey after she read one of his pieces (biggest) but he didn’t answer the phone because the caller ID said “Unknown” (Blackest).

A new “gate” just dropped. 

Ever since a sitting president was accused of sponsoring a Washington, D.C., break-in (no, not that one), covering up a secretly recorded phone call of his attempts to interfere with a presidential election (no, not that one) and Congress filing articles of impeachment (calm down, bruh; I’m getting to it!) attaching the suffix “-gate” to a word transformed a benign word into a scandal. 

The Watergate Hotel burglary was just a gateway drug to America’s “-gate” addiction. Hostagegate, Ronald Reagan’s deal to sell weapons to terrorists to delay the release of American hostages in Iran, was different from Contragate — when the Reagan administration simply ”overlooked” the CIA illegally bankrolling an international drug cartel. I will never forgive the person who named Crackgate, the scandal that started at the “front gate of the White House.” (Gategate was right there!). I understand why George H.W. Bush administration officials orchestrated a drug deal from 18-year-old Keith Jackson – they needed a prop for Bush’s Oval Office speech officially kicking off the war on drugs. 

If you are too young to remember Debategate, Filegate or Lawyergate, don’t fret. Exactly 10 years after the Pulitzer Prize-losing reporters at Fox News exposed Barack Obama’s Nixonian involvement in the “Suitgate” conspiracy, Caucasian America’s favorite news channel recently uncovered a political scandal worse than terrorist fist jabgate and Arugulagate combined.

Welcome to Accentgate.

During a Tuesday briefing, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre gave Fox News Chief White House Troll Peter Doocy the opportunity to ask any question. Doocy – who apparently inherited the dimly lit bulb in his brain from his “wacky weatherman” father, Fox and Friends host Steve Doocy — didn’t want to ask the official spokesperson for the most powerful politician in the world about Biden’s recent criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu. He didn’t want to know more about the president’s reaction to the new jobs report. Instead, the nepo baby who President Joe Biden once referred to as a “stupid son of a bitch” decided to confront the person who does not work for the Harris-Walz campaign about Kamala Harris’ campaign stops in Pittsburgh and Detroit. And rather than focusing on the content of Harris’ remarks, the Fox’s DEI heir was only interested in how Harris sounded. 

“Since when does the vice president have what sounds like a Southern accent?” asked Doocy, douchely. “She was talking about unions in Detroit, using one tone of voice. Same line … She used the same line in Pittsburgh and it sounded like she at least had some kind of Southern drawl.”

As usual, Jean-Pierre laughed off the question as another example of Doocy’s duplicity. However, some keen-eared social media users heard the same thing Doocy heard, accepted his premise and accused Harris of engaging in linguistic pandering. Many, citing their own fundamental misunderstanding of the term “code-switching,” recognized the slight difference in accents as something they regularly do. A few people translated Doocy’s accusations of a “southern accent” to Caucasian American Vernacular English as: “Kamala Harris is doing a fake blaccent.”

And of course, many dismissed the entire conversation with an age-old African-American aphorism.

“White people be tripping.”

Still, we had some questions: Was Harris actually using two different speech patterns in each city? If so, was she code-switching or pandering? If not, then what was she doing? Is it possible that white people are just tripping? If so, why? 

Answering these questions requires an expert. Unfortunately, the researchers at the Doocy Institute of Caucasian Knowledge and White American Dialect (DICKWAD) would not return our phone calls to answer these questions. We needed the expertise and ears of someone who actually knows about the intersection of culture, language and dialect. Thankfully, we knew a guy. 

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You may recognize social linguist, cultural advocate and educator Sunn m’Cheaux from TikTok or Instagram. While his videos dissecting language and culture have been shared by millions, m’Cheaux also serves as the Gullah-Gechee instructor at Harvard University’s African Language Program. According to the world-renowned professor who actually analyzes, studies and teaches the history, nuances and variations in language and speech, the debate around Doocy’s dumb question is based on four separate but commonly misunderstood concepts:

• Accents: Regional and cultural variations in pronunciation Or, in this case, a particularly Black speech affect commonly known as a “Blaccent.”
• Code-switching: Switching between two different languages or dialects
• The chameleon effect: Subconsciously mimicking or mirroring verbal and nonverbal behaviors 
• Informed behavior: Intentionally adjusting one’s behavior based on the information available.

White people be wrong.

Let’s get this out of the way: Kamala Harris was not code-switching.

One of the most common misunderstandings of the nuances of Black dialect and African American Vernacular English is non-Black people’s mistranslation of the “invariant be” (Even the attempts by language scholars at Yale and Merriam-Webster whitesplain it wrong). For instance, native AAVE speakers understand that “he be tripping,” “he is tripping” and “he tripping” are three completely different sentences (No, I will not explain. What’s understood don’t need to be said). 

Similarly, people who are not Black mistakenly use their personal experiences as a culturally analogous reference point for the Black American experience. However, as m’Cheaux noted, it is impossible to understand cultural behavior if you don’t include the history and social influences that created the behavior. This is why, before m’Cheaux even waded into the conversation, m’Cheaux wanted to clarify that many social media users (Black and white) were conflating code-switching with the commonly used speech modifications that he called “the chameleon effect.” 

“That’s not code-switching,” m’Cheaux told theGrio. “Human beings are pack animals. And, to some extent, unanimity — or being in the pack and doing as the pack does — has been a matter of survival for thousands of years. Most people subconsciously or consciously model their behavior after the behavior that’s in their presence. No one talks to their mother the same way they talk to their friends in the lunchroom or on the basketball court. Code-switching or code-meshing, on the other hand, requires an actual code.

“Most people alter their speech based on the listener or the audience,” m’Cheaux added. “But in order for code-switching to be in effect, there has to be some sort of social context, historical context or a power disparity of some kind. Gullah-Geechee and Jamaican patois are both English-based languages and, to the untrained ear, sound similar. But the thing that makes them different is the history and social context of slavery. That’s why most Black people are, at the very least, bilingual – they have different modes of speech in each language.” The professor also noted that code-switching is not exclusive to minority groups nor is it uncommon to white Americans. For instance, the people who think they can fluently converse with their Mexican friends because they took Spanish in college are no different from the Caucasian colleague who adopts a “Blaccent” when you talk to them at the water cooler. 

In fact, according to m’Cheaux: “White people be doing it all the time.” 

In fact, after listening closely to Kamala Harris’ two speeches, m’Cheaux placed the vice president in a different linguistic category altogether. Slipping into his Lowcountry accent, m’Cheaux laughed and explained in the language with which we were both familiar. 

“Dem people just wrong.”

Kamala be pandering

Let’s get this out of the way: Kamala Harris was not using a “blaccent.” 

Using his “professional ear,” m’Cheaux listened to Harris’ speech multiple times. He conceded that Harris altered her delivery during the two campaign appearances. However, in his expert opinion, her actual accent was nearly identical in both clips. However, m’Cheax understood why smart, informed people (and Peter Doocy) might mistakenly confuse Harris’ variations in cadence, tone, volume and body language for an entirely different accent. 

Most people people can’t do that. 

“First and foremost, people have to remember that Kamala Harris is a professional politician,” m’Cheaux explained. “There are tools of her profession that most people don’t have access to. Every person who graduates from high school learned the same rules of grammar you did. But can they write like you? Why not? Why can’t people who speak correct English get in front of a camera and sound like a professional newscaster? Is the way that you see them when they’re casting the news the same speech they use when they’re speaking in their everyday language? They’re just using the tools that come along with the job you have chosen.

“We’ve seen Ed Sheeran, do this when he collaborates with a ‘street’ dude,” m’Cheaux explained. “We’ve seen Hillary do it. We’ve seen Bill Clinton do it. We’ve seen Barack Obama do it. We’ve seen all of these politicians roll up their sleeves or wear flannel shirts to pander to Midwest voters, so it’s not unheard of.”

But was Kamala Harris pandering?

Probably.

As m’Cheaux noted, pandering is part of effective communication. A third-grade teacher sounds different in the classroom than in a parent-teacher conference. Job candidates talk differently at job interviews because they’re pandering to their potential employer. Voters are essentially potential employers and appealing to the widest swath of voters is literally the only way Harris will get the job. Professor m’Cheaux added that the discussion was also complicated by one more important factor. 

Blackness.

Regardless of their geographic upbringing, their mixed-race heritage or their parental backgrounds, Black politicians have an extra tool at their disposal. By simply varying her cadence and moving her neck a little more, Harris has the ability to make herself more relatable to Black people. Black Americans aren’t so hypnotized by neck movement or negro preacher cadences that they are willing to overlook a candidate’s actual political positions — we’re not that dumb. “Malcolm X did this all the time,” m’Cheaux said. “He would switch between using academic phrasing to more colloquial terms, and he was very good at it. So would MLK Jr. He was a great orator and a brilliant writer, but he knew better than to use language that would go over the heads of the people. If you notice, when he’s talking to the masses, you will hear less of that Georgia twang than when he spoke at a chicken dinner.”

Plus, If it’s wrong for Kamala Harris to exploit her advantages, then it should be wrong when white politicians weaponize their whiteness. Why doesn’t Doocy complain when Donald Trump uses dog whistles like “law and order,” or “low-income housing forced into the suburbs” to appeal to white voters? JD Vance’s entire career is based on the mythology of his white, Appalachian hillbilly background. Mike Pence became a Republican star by using his Christian background as a virtue signal to the religious right. When Trump selected Pence as vice president, was he pandering to white evangelicals? Why isn’t Pence considered a DEI hire? 

“There are things that are not controversial in every group that people outside the group might not understand,” m’Cheaux explained. “But when you are on the world stage, people who are observing and analyzing the behavior don’t have a cultural point of reference. So to them, the behavior seems fake.” 

M’Cheaux also pointed out the inherent danger in scrutinizing Kamala Harris’ speech in a way that no other candidate faces.

“If you focus on these types of things long enough, you eventually circle back to being racist and misogynistic,” m’Cheaux noted. “When you heavily police language this way –  because it is so in alignment with the conventional way of linguistic imperialism and the white-centric approach to self-expression, conformity and behavior, you’re going to just scratch right beneath the surface and strike oil in a hot minute. And that oil ain’t nothing but racism. It’s now people who ain’t Black trying to tell somebody who is how they can and cannot express themselves.”

He ain’t lying.

Also, when it comes to cultural gatekeeping, unlike a certain news network that’s full of Doocy …

Sunn m’Cheaux don’t be lying.

Remember, that’s two different things. 

Michael Harriot is an economist, cultural critic and championship-level Spades player. His New York Times bestseller Black AF History: The Unwhitewashed Story of America is available everywhere books are sold.

Gun violence is yet again at the forefront of the national consciousness following Wednesday’s deadly high school shooting in Winder, Georgia. The tragedy that struck Apalachee High School, where four people were killed and nine others injured, has renewed calls for stricter gun laws from Democrats and gun safety advocates. 

“We have to end this epidemic of gun violence in our country once and for all,” Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, said hours after Wednesday’s shooting at a campaign event in New Hampshire. She added, “It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be this way.”  

Advocates see Harris as the only and best candidate to build on progress in reducing gun violence, particularly in Black communities. Tackling the issue is a top concern for Black Americans, who are nearly three times more likely than white Americans to die by a gun.

According to a study conducted by the gun safety advocacy group GIFFORDS, 74% of Black voters want to see stronger gun laws. The survey, part of a $15 million campaign to highlight the issue of gun violence leading up to the Nov. 5 general election, also found that half of all Black voters are “extremely concerned” about the prevalence of gun violence in their communities compared to 24% of the overall voting population. 

“They’re more impacted by community violence, everyday violence, the type of violence that, in comparison to mass shootings, for example, doesn’t get the proper coverage, the proper attention that is necessary to help tell the story of what is happening in these communities,” Aneesa McMillan, communications director at GIFFORDS, told theGrio. 

GIFFORDS, which was founded by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a survivor of a 2011 assassination attempt, has endorsed Harris in the 2024 presidential race. Giffords praised Harris’ “steadfast leadership” on the issue of gun violence, adding that the Democratic nominee will “save lives.”

McMillan says Harris has been a “key partner” and “gun safety champion,” both as a U.S. senator and now as vice president. Harris currently leads the White House’s historic gun violence prevention office, which is tasked with implementing provisions from Biden’s Safer Communities Act that allocates $250 million toward community violence intervention programs. 

“It’s something that we know works in Black and brown communities,” said McMillan. 

Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, told theGrio that Harris will “build upon that transformative progress” as the potential “first-ever Black and Asian American woman president of the United States.”

“She is not just a symbol of possibility –  she is a powerful force in shaping policies to keep our families safe,” said Ferrell-Zabala, who noted that Harris strengthened gun safety laws as attorney general in California and, as a U.S. senator, co-sponsored legislation to expand background checks and prohibit abusers from having guns.

She continued, “She genuinely understands the devastating reality of this uniquely American crisis that disproportionately impacts communities of color, and that we need to invest in the holistic, local solutions that have been created by those communities being impacted.”

In her remarks in New Hampshire, Harris noted that during her “Fight For Our Freedoms” college tour last fall, she asked students on each campus to raise their hand if “at any point between kindergarten and 12th grade you had to endure an active shooter drill.”

“I’m telling you, every time, the auditorium was packed, and almost every hand went up,” said the vice president. 

Harris, along with President Biden, Democrats and advocates, have called for Congress to go further than the Safer Communities Act, which expanded background check requirements and established new criminal offenses. Gun safety proponents also want to see a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines and establish universal background checks.

According to the GIFFORDS survey, 50% of Black voters attributed the issue to a lack of mental health services and 49% blamed the nation’s gun violence epidemic on weak gun laws. Forty-seven percent of Black voters cited easy access to guns, and 40% blamed loopholes in gun laws.

Kristin Powell, principal of Black to the Future Action Fund, told theGrio that gun violence is also tied to economic policy.

“If we have a robust economic agenda that is really bringing Black people out of poverty, then we’re going to see community gun violence go down,” said Powell.

According to the organization’s Black Census, Black voters’ concerns about gun violence are three-pronged: community violence, white supremacist violence and police violence.

Though gun violence continues to plague the nation, there are signs that the work of the Biden-Harris administration is working. Data shows gun violence victimization is trending downward in 2024. However, advocates say they are concerned about the implications of former president and Republican nominee Donald Trump winning the election in November.

“What happens to the [White House] office of gun violence prevention if, god forbid, Donald Trump is reelected?” queried McMillan. “We know that he will take pride in not addressing the issue or seeking to undo the progress that we have made because of his alliances to the NRA [and] the gun lobbyists.”  

On Thursday, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, U.S. Senator JD Vance, faced criticisms for saying that school shootings were a “fact of life.” He also misleadingly claimed that Harris wants to “take law-abiding citizens’ guns away from them.” He and Trump also have called for tighter security for schools as a solution, though the National Education Association notes that hardening school security does not prevent school shootings.

“Donald Trump and JD Vance think school shootings are a ‘fact of life’ and ‘we have to get over it,’” said Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa, referencing a previous remark Trump made following an Iowa school shooting in January.

“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz know we can take action to keep our children safe and keep guns out of the hands of criminals,” said Moussa. “Donald Trump and JD Vance will always choose the NRA and gun lobby over our children. That is the choice in this election.”

“To elect someone who has relentlessly fought for women and gun violence survivors, whether it was during her days as a prosecutor or as vice president, means something,” Ferrell-Zabala told theGrio. “Because in order to create a brighter, safer future for everyone in America, we need a president who understands and responds to those of us who have been systematically ignored.” 

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Bobby Singh Shah, 51, was arrested on Wednesday for the murder of Muna Pandey, a 21-year-old student found dead in her Houston apartment over the weekend. The case has sent shockwaves through the community, with investigators piecing together a disturbing timeline of events.

Pandey was discovered by apartment complex staff after an anonymous tip prompted a welfare check on Sunday. Upon entering her apartment, they found her lifeless body with multiple gunshot wounds, including an execution-style shot to the back of her head. The gruesome nature of the crime immediately launched a high-priority investigation by local authorities.

Houston police quickly released surveillance footage from Pandey’s apartment complex showing a man leaving the scene shortly after the time of the crime. In the video, the suspect is seen holding a gun and forcing Pandey to open her door before shoving her inside and locking the door behind them. This footage played a critical role in the subsequent developments.

Among the flood of tips received after the footage was released was one that stood out: a woman claimed she recognized the suspect as Bobby Singh Shah, a man she encountered on a “sugar daddy” platform over a decade ago. Her identification was crucial in linking Shah to the crime.

Pandey’s friends also provided key insights to investigators, revealing that she had been troubled by a stalker in the past year, leading her to install a security camera outside her apartment. The camera, meant to protect her, ended up capturing the tragic moments leading to her death.

In a coordinated effort by law enforcement, Shah was arrested during a routine traffic stop on Wednesday, just days after the footage was released. His arrest marks a significant breakthrough in the case, but many questions remain unanswered as investigators continue to delve into Shah’s background and possible motives.

Authorities are now working to determine whether the murder was premeditated and if Shah had any prior connection to Pandey beyond the fateful encounter. The absence of Pandey’s phone at the crime scene has raised further concerns, with investigators trying to track its whereabouts as part of the ongoing investigation.

The tragic death of Muna Pandey has left her friends and family in mourning, while the arrest of Bobby Singh Shah provides a small measure of relief that justice may soon be served.

Related

A 6-year-old Black boy in Orange County, Calif. was taken to the hospital by his babysitter last week after sustaining critical injuries. But the discovery of who allegedly gave him those injuries will infuriate parents everywhere.

On Thursday, Ernest Lamar Love, 41, was charged with one felony count of murder, torture, and child abuse causing death after Chance Crawford, the 6-year-old boy he was taking care of, died on Tuesday (Sept. 3).

On Aug. 29, after Crawford’s third day of first grade, he was dropped off at Love’s barbershop so that his mother could work a night shift at a local hospital. Shortly after, Love took the boy to a local park where he accidentally peed on himself, according to police.

Authorities claim that after his accident, Love beat and tortured the boy with a piece of wood. There is surveillance footage of Love walking back into his barbershop with the piece of wood in hand and Crawford behind him.

More from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office:

Doctors at CHOC discovered that much of Chance’s flesh was missing from his buttocks, leaving raw, gaping wounds, along with subdural hematoma, extreme brain swelling, and other injuries consistent with violent shaking. The little boy also had healing fracture on his shoulder blade.

Love is accused of beating the first grader with the piece of lumber, then pouring hydrogen peroxide on the open wounds before forcing the boy to doing push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks. When the boy collapsed, Love is accused of driving the boy to the emergency room at CHOC instead of calling 911.

In a statement, Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer said, “Words do not exist to describe the absolute terror this little boy was forced to endure — all at the hands of someone who was supposed to be protecting him, not torturing him to death.”

Love is facing a maximum sentence of 32 years to life in prison, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office.

Crawford’s parents are devastated by the loss of their son. His father, Vance Crawford, told KABC-TV, “He lived a happy life. He was great. He was a great kid. I love my son. I miss him so much. He didn’t deserve that.”