Official Statement from Samaria Rice, mother of Tamir Rice, Lisa Simpson, mother of Richard Risher, and the Collective After Tamir and Richard were murdered, when we had to bury our sons, we didn’t see ‘Black’, ‘Lives’, or ‘Matter’. Our DNA changed when our sons were murdered. It took breath out of our bodies. When y’all...
Tag: Tamir Rice
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Black Pain And The Difficult Work Of Telling Our Stories
We cannot tell difficult stories for the sake of telling them, we have to tell them because if we do not, the perpetrators of our pain get to decide its impact. By Kamilah Bush Recently, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be an artist who creates “difficult work.” I think of recent pieces...
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Timothy Loehmann Fired From Cleveland Police Department Over Technicality, Not Racism
Imagine an America that prioritized directly confronting its racist legacy, not devising roundabout avenues to address the problem. Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who shot and killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice in November 2014, was fired by the Cleveland Police Department. Under any other circumstance, this would come as ready relief, this would be joyous...
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Teaching Beyond Respectability Politics
In the wake of the deaths of Jordan Edwards and Richard Collins, two more black boys left to a hashtag, the highlighting of accolades and posturing is more prevalent than ever. By Erica Buddington “Silence and uniformity are not reflections of a job well done.” I said this to a former supervisor who’d walked into...
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Jordan Edwards Died Exactly 25 Years After the L.A. Riots, and Nothing Has Changed.
The police shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards reveals that we haven’t made any real progress since Rodney King and the L.A. Riots. Editor’s Update: A previous version of this article stated that the L.A. Riots took place 20 years ago. The actual number is 25, though the thesis of the piece still holds. How ironic is...
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How White Privilege Shapes “Intent” — and How Intent Keeps Privileged Whites Out of Jail
by Kristance Harlow The common saying that “it’s the thought that counts” is supposed to apply to gift-giving, but it was destined to morph — as all language does — and has been used to justify the continuation of a broken criminal justice system. Not everyone’s thoughts count, though. Intent is determined by the powerful...
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Here’s Why Nick Cannon Boycotted Trump At Black Lives Matter Rally
“Lack of representation” brings Nick Cannon to anti-Trump rally during RNC in Cleveland. Actor and rapper Nick Cannon joined Black Lives Matters protestors in Cleveland, Ohio, this week, where conservatives are holding the Republican National Convention. Although Cannon’s presence with BLM activists was meant to highlight the GOP’s unwillingness to take a principled, firm stand...
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Justice Looks Like White Teens Ordered to Write Essay for Carrying BB Guns While Black Man Shot Dead In Open Carry State
America, 2016: white kids get leniency for writing about white supremacy while Black people die from living it. Would you like to know what race in America looks like in the 21st century? Let me show you. In Ohio, back in 2014, John Crawford was holding a toy gun in a Walmart in Beavercreek, Ohio. Police arrived,...