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Money Can’t Buy Happiness–or Forgiveness: Tamir Rice

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Written by Zoe Allen

The city of Cleveland, Ohio, will pay $6 million in settlement over a federal lawsuit filed by the family of Tamir Rice, the twelve year old that was slain by police while holding a pellet gun in November 2014, in Cleveland Ohio.

Despite countless protests, moral struggles, backlash, and obvious fault of Officer Timothy Loehmann, Cleveland still acknowledges no fault in Rice’s 2014 death. Loehmann and his partner were never indicted, attributing his vicious crime to “human error”.

There has been too much “human error”, then. “Human error” does not condone the hundreds of fatal shootings of black people every year. “Human error” is not responsible for Mike Brown, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Sandra Bland, and so many others. “Human error” can not be held at fault for the racial prejudices running rampant in our country today. “Human error” cannot be the excuse for police brutality.

The fact that Cleveland still cannot admit its mistake and wrongdoing means that our voices aren’t being heard enough. Our message is not clear enough. #BlackLivesMatter is all too real–how can people not recognize it?

As a white ally, I will never experience racial prejudice in the ways that so many will. Lemonade is not mine to interpret or relate to. I cannot understand black struggles. I will never understand the pain of racism or the struggle of simply being black, but it sure as hell is my duty to feel pain for innocent people, to fight the good fight for human rights and social justice, and to try to make the world better. #BlackLivesMatter is solidarity, a statement that I agree with and will fight for, and a statement that everyone should agree with and be fighting for.

Tamir Rice was twelve. Twelve. If it had been a white twelve year old holding a gun shaped object, Loehmann would have just assumed that he was playing around. Instead, the pigmentation of Rice’s skin ended up getting him shot.

And Cleveland still does not understand the pain that it has caused most importantly Rice’s family, but also the entire black community and so many allies around the country.

Money cannot buy happiness. Material things are nice, but $6 million will never be enough compensation for the death of Rice.

$6 million is a lot of money. More than most of us will ever make in our lives. $6 million is a lot of money, but it cannot buy Tamir Rice back from the dead.

 

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