From Jamaica to America

I remember as a child back in Jamaica, I would walk along the street to go to play with my friends up the block. Some days I dressed in my treasured cowboy outfit. My father had sent to me from the US. I loved everything American then, I thought it was the greatest country in the world. Now that I have lived here the rose-colored glasses of childhood have long since been removed.

My cowboy set had two gleaming silver/pearl handle colt pistols and numerous silver plastic bullets on the back of the belt. The days spent playing with my friends shooting my toy pistols at them in, even at passersby as we ran were blanketed in a sense of childish innocence and glee. A child does not think of death, not really. I never had any fear that the police would set upon me. I never sensed my life was in jeopardy at any moment.  Although I was nine years old then, I knew a real gun was not a toy and was not something to be playing with. Maybe that is how Tamir Rice felt as he played with his toy, by himself. A child’s glee is just as bright no matter where he is, and nothing quite excites a child’s mind like the creativity of play. The big difference is he was in America. While I played in my third world country where my black skin is the norm and my life is cherished by all, he played in an American playground where his black skin and life is not cherished by majority surrounding him. In the midst of his play the police were called to respond to a black man in a local playground carrying a gun.

They the police can be seen on the video as they drove up to where Tamir played and opened fire within two seconds of their arrival. On the video we saw Tamir fatally shot and fall to the ground while he was still in the mind set of play. They never stop him to question him. Their prejudice clouded their judgement preventing them using common sense. These murders has happened so many times before the police know they would be exonerated by the courts and the department of justice and so they continue the use of deadly force against the black male population.

His life, his innocence was cherished by his parents, by his sister who fought to comfort him as he lay dying on the ground, his extended family who will never forget him, the surrounding black community who mourned him and the international black community who read of his tragic passing.   We feel for him for we know this was easily preventable. Tamir did not threaten the officers, he did not fire his toy pistol at them. We have brains, we have languages, we have evolved to have words to communicate so as to prevent the occurrence of tragedies like this.  But what occupies the heart and minds of men who hate will always prevent them from doing what is right. Especially if there is a corrupt complicit justice system who refuse to hold these killers with badges accountable for the murders they commit.

With my own eyes I watched him die, and saw what the law had failed to see; the bigoted hatred that spurred his unnecessary death. The officer never took the time to use his common sense for his racism took hold of him guiding him to use deadly force. He listened to his racist held thoughts and so Tamir paid with his life.  If it was a white child would the police officer have taken the time to communicate with the child and prevent the use of deadly force. I am sure he would.

What is the solution? How do we resolve this? We are at a crossroads America what path do we take or was it already taken?

All men should be treated equally by the law otherwise there is no justice in the justice system.