A Month in Memoriam: Day 11

There are only three A’s in Aiyana Stanley-Jones’ name.

One of my biggest fears became a 36-shirt reality. I’d misspelled her name and gotten the year she was murdered wrong.

Aiyana’s name made its way back into the news in October 2014 after a judge decided to drop the involuntary manslaughter charge against the Detroit police officer fatally shot her.

For some reason, my mind told me she died in 2014, not 2010. The fallen brothers and sisters are listed chronologically. According to that rule, Aiyana should’ve preceded Rekia Boyd, Renisha McBride and Yvette Smith.

When someone called me out on Instagram for the mistake, I was devastated.

I’d checked and rechecked the spelling of her name over and over and over again. I’d done the same for others too.

Was it Trayvon or Treyvon? Emmett or Emmitt? I cross-checked dozens of times, knowing that even news sources make mistakes.

I should’ve had someone else look it over. I routinely worked in solitude, trusting myself to keep everything together.

That time, I couldn’t.

There was nothing I could do other than to pull the shirts immediately. I thanked the person for catching the mistake, deleted the Instagram post and notified customers who’d purchased the shirt.

Greetings,

You are receiving this email because you recently purchased a Vol. VI Tee: Fight Amnesia February Limited Edition. Unfortunately, Aiyana Stanley-Jones was misspelled on the tee (Aiayana) so we are taking the necessary steps to correct this error.

As soon as the corrected shirts are printed, we will ship them out to you. In the meantime, feel free to use the code appreciation25 for 25% off of your next order if you so choose to do business with us again.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns and thank you in advance for your patience.

-Email Correspondence | February 2015

It was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had, like I’d failed and done a gross disservice to the delicate work honoring our fallen sisters and brothers.

I vowed never to make that mistake again.