The Tragedy of Tamir…
Today, I am compelled to pray for and write about this child whose life was taken so violently and unexpectedly from the arms of his family and the world.
Six years ago today, Tamir, a twelve year old boy, was playing outside a Cleveland recreation center he frequented many times to play sports, to take pottery classes, and just be a kid. On this particular day, Tamir was playing outside alone with a toy gun; pretending as millions of boys his age have done. Just pretending. You've witnessed it - maybe even seen your own son - running around, pointing a gun at an imaginary enemy, shouting "bang, bang!" It's a playtime ritual for many boys today, like the "Cowboys and Indians" played by the generation before.
Again. This was pretend. A child utilizing his imagination outside a recreation center that had been nurturing and encouraging his imagination, his athleticism, his creativity, and development for years. His playtime should have been protected.
As fate and injustice would have it, Tamir's young life would be taken in a matter of seconds because of someone else's imagination. A white police officer who speeds up on the grounds of the recreation center where Tamir is playing (lost in pretending), jumps out of his vehicle and shoots the boy, assuming he was a threat. Assuming, Tamir - in that moment - was the "Black male boogey man monster prone to violence, murder and evil" that had been planted in his imagination over his lifetime through the consumption of bigoted propaganda steeped in American media, society, and culture. The cop did not even take a second to see Tamir was a child. To approach the situation without use of a gun or force.
This is not how Tamir's game should have ended.
However, in this country, childhoods are often stolen from Black children. At first, our children are seen as "cute puppies" and "pets" but by the time many of them turn 11 or 12 - their bodies beginning to stretch; their voices beginning to deepen; they are not seen as children, but adults. That white supremacist mythological threat of matured Blackness begins to seep into many imaginations.
For many, Blackness is to be feared.
On that fateful day, Tamir, deemed "a most pleasant boy" by his stunned teachers, became a tragic, heartbreaking symbol of the centuries of lies and distorted narratives that shape white supremacist ideology, imagination, and acceptable stereotypes in this country and around the world. These distorted narratives helped establish unbalanced, unjust systems, policies, and institutions that force Black people, Black families, Black parents, and Black children to navigate the world differently. Our bodies, our minds, our communities, and our culture are not protected here.
A Black mother must always think twice before allowing her son and his friends to play with their toy guns in the front yard, let alone in a public place. This was even before the Tamir incident. A Black mother must always think twice before allowing her son or daughter to "run up real quick to the corner store or 7-Eleven to pick up orange juice or a snack." This was even before LaTasha Harlins and Trayvon Martin.
Black mothers and fathers recognize that the world does not see our children as children - as the humans they are - as the precious promises they are to our families. As the gifts they are to the world. And this is unfair. It's enough to make one rage against the machine of hate, misinformation, miseducation, and evil that has shaped our image in the minds of others. Even the "allies" among us, still carry these narratives they've been told about us. About Blackness. It's difficult to erase centuries long myths.
My heart and the heart of millions of other mothers and fathers were broken by what happened to Tamir six years ago. His murder haunts me. He reminds me so much of my own son who was also twelve at the time of Tamir's death. My son, who I always told to be careful when he went out to play in our yard or a public park with his lacrosse stick -- I didn't want anyone to mistake it for a weapon. My son, now a budding photographer, who I ask to be careful when he goes out for a photo shoot to a public place -- I don't want anyone to mistake his equipment as a weapon. A mother should never carry such a weight of worry and concern for their children.
Enslavement ended over 130 years ago, yet its legacy continues to fester. Tamir, Trayvon, Latasha, and all Black children and youth, should feel safe and confident navigating in public spaces, in white spaces, in ANY space. Unfortunately, they were born into a society that historically distorts Black childhood into adulthood and Black adulthood into childhood. Where else could you hear a grown Black man, an elder even, referred to as "boy?"
Society's lens has been shaped by anti-Blackness, the continued practice of our dehumanization, and the patriarchy.
And so, today, I mourn with Tamir's family. I pray his young, sweet soul is at peace. I pray that as the wound of this anniversary re-opens for his family, that they are comforted. I pray for the strength, courage, wisdom, and creativity to continue to use my voice, my craft, to dispel and destroy the myths that color the dangerously distorted imaginations of millions in our society, especially those in positions of power to act on them.
To take the life of a child without a thought. The policeman's defense? The prolific excuse that he thought the child to be the Black boogey-man he, his peers, and fellow comrades, have always been taught to fear. And Tamir's crime? The innocence in his Blackness; thinking he lived in a world where it was safe for him to freely play or even utilize his imagination at all. Until Black children everywhere are free to BE....the struggle continues.