Open carry laws that white citizens of Ohio enjoy didn’t protect Tamir Rice. The 12 year-old black boy was executed by Cleveland police for playing alone in the park with a toy gun. Now a mother is without a son. Rice was shot within two seconds of officers exiting their vehicle. They claim to have mistaken him for someone much older, using descriptors like “big” to describe Rice His death another in an ongoing string of murders where unarmed black and brown bodies end up dead. More evidence of Jim Crow era policing where execution by gun shot is the new lynching.
Open Carry And White Supremacy Murders Black Boys–Tamir Deserves Justice
Breaking News headlines from Mother Jones Magazine announced no one would be indicted in Rice’s murder and my heart ached. As racist cowards hid behind keyboards typing hateful things about a black murdered child, I hurt for his mother, Samaria Rice, and for my community. And then I got angry. Ohio is doing the most to set precedent in 2015. It is the same state that expelled a black 7th grade student for looking at his white classmate (a girl). The two had been engaged in a ‘staring contest,’ The underlying message: black boys are not seen as children, and are viewed instead as potential predators by too many people, especially white racists.
All Lives Matter Activists And NRA Proponents Offer Silence
Proponents of open carry are as quiet about justice for Tamir Rice as the All Lives Matter Activists who insist that police brutality does not target black and brown bodies. This is insulting. NRA proponents sanction the right to have and bear arms at all times. Protecting family, they say, is a number one priority. The lack of justice through the court system is another slap in the face to the Rice family. The privilege of whiteness is glaring and loud, screaming, Black Lives Don’t Matter!
The Double Standard of Open Carry Afforded White America Will Not Fly
American as apple pie, pictures of white kids holding guns circulate around the Internet. Thus, normalizing guns as a white American right to open carry.
There has been a shift, an awakening in the consciousness across social media since a grand jury opted not to indict Tamir Rice’s murderer. Open carry has two meanings: if you are white, you can carry with impunity without fear of being arrested. If you’re black and your gun is just a toy: watch out. This is a wake up call! The double standard of open carry allowed the death of Tamir Rice. His murder MUST be avenged.
