Recently, a twelve year old boy name Tamir Rice was shot and
killed by police officers. He was in a park, alone, playing with a toy gun. The
gun was a close replica of a real gun, and the red plastic that identified it
as a toy had been removed. Eyewitnesses
say he was pulling the gun on people passing by. When the police arrived, he
pulled the gun and was promptly shot. He later died from the injuries he
sustained.
The court did not convict the police officers, in regards to
the shooting. There is significant disagreement as to whether this decision
brought justice or not.
My intent here, in this blog, is not pass judgment… on anybody.
I was not there. I am not a police officer. I did not know Tamir Rice. My goal
is to express a sincere and profound sadness for the entire event.
While I was contemplating how to approach this blog with
respect, I repeatedly returned to the process of humbling myself. Reminding
myself that my skin is white, as is my children’s. Neither of my children, my
son or daughter, is lightly to be discriminated against due to skin color. My daughter
potentially for gender, but not race. While I have (currently) and will likely have
(in the future) plenty of reasons to worry about my children, race will not be
the basis for this concern. My child based sleepless nights will have an
entirely different source.
The Cleveland police department released the surveillance video
of the event. Initially, I was undecided as to whether or not to watch it,
finally deciding in favor. What I saw made me heart weep.
My heart wept for the parents of this child, who will have
to bury their young son, a process no parent should ever have to suffer. I,
personally, cannot imagine the pain of burying a child and I don’t ever want
to. Just the thought of it makes me want to cry.
My heart wept for the child, who (for whatever reason) didn’t
refrain from pointing his toy weapon at the officers; although he had probably
been told so many times that it was a terrible idea. If I had a penny for every
time I repeat commands to my children, ones that they still don’t follow if I’m
not looking, I’d be a millionaire. Tragically, 12 year old boys are not known
for their sound decision making and he won’t grow up to be mad at his younger
self.
My heart wept for the police officers, who joined the police
force with the intent of contributing to society, not taking a child from it. Men
who have loved ones of their own, and who had to make a snap decision with
little to no proof. Perhaps they even have their own 12 year old child at home,
and that face was the last thing they saw before they pulled the trigger. If
either of those officers were my husband, I’d want him to come home to me.
Would it be any less painful for me (and our children) to bury my husband/their
father, had it been a real gun and the kid had pulled the trigger?
My heart wept for our society. All of us. Every single one
of us. We live in a world where race is such a barrier to civilized interaction.
Some like to say that racism is no longer an issue. They are delusional. Of
course it’s a problem. It’s a raging problem. The miscommunication between
cultures does not allow for the open conversation that would actually help. If
I were to claim that being white does not provide me and my children a higher
level of safety in public, I would be lying and/or blind.
Let me tell you a story.
When I was working in a public high school, there was an
incident where an older white teacher and a younger black student disagreed
about an issue of discipline. I never knew learned the details of their
disagreement. The teacher became stern and the student became agitated. He
talked back, gesturing wildly with his hands and raising his voice. The teacher
claimed that she had been assaulted. The student replied that she was lying.
They were both right. The teacher did, authentically, feel
assaulted. The physical proximity of the student, combined with the volume of
speech and size of hand gestures, made her feel unsafe. She felt assaulted. The
student, however, had no intent of making her feel unsafe. He simply reacted
like a teenage boy with lower capacity to control his emotions. He was mad,
furious. He didn’t feel heard, and so he kept attempting to make his point. His
methods did not win him favor with his teacher.
In an ideal world, there would have been a space in the
middle. A space where the student could feel heard without explosive behavior
and the teacher could feel in control of her classroom without being
inflexible. As a person, I understand them both and have no intent of taking
sides.
Racism is a dangerous thing. It’s real. It’s out there. The perpetrators
of it, often times, do it without intent and without knowledge of having done
it. They do and say things that land
badly, even though their intent was good. With a safer society, however, the
offended could speak up and educate the offender. The offender could explain
their intent and offended could explain their reaction. A middle ground could
be reached, with both compromising a bit. Both sides acknowledging the need to
meet in the middle and respect the diversity of our communities. In the case of
the student and teacher, perhaps the student could have felt safe to apologize
for scaring her, and the teacher could have found a way to understand the true
intentions of the student’s actions.
Perhaps the police officers could have made a different
choice when they approached the kid, one that gave them more options in the
middle ground. Perhaps the kid could have had his “oh shit” moment earlier and
realized it was time to stop making silly choices. Perhaps..Perhaps…Perhaps…
I am not so naïve as to believe that all offenders are
accidental. Some, on both sides, are intentional and unapologetic. They are
proud of their stance on hate and have no desire to change. This saddens me
profoundly and the commentary I have on these individuals has no place in this
blog, as it would ruin the optimistic tone that I am determined to maintain.
The question I ask myself is this. If the kid with the toy
gun had been white , and that where the only difference, would it have ended
differently?
