On November 24th, 2014, two days after a Cleveland police officer killed an unarmed, 12-year-old African American named Tamir Rice, I realized that everything I thought I wanted for my life didn’t matter. That night I discovered that all I truly wanted was to tell Tamir that I was sorry, sorry for letting him die. I wanted to apologize, on behalf of all white Americans, for being passive and willfully ignorant to the persistent injustices against black Americans. But Tamir Rice will never know just how sorry I am, how hopeless his death left me, or how it was his death that made me recognize my responsibility to fight this racism. Initially, that realization was difficult to grasp because we live in a country that tells us everybody is equal and that we should be racially color-blind. However, it was immediately obvious to me that being racially color-blind actually allows people to treat African Americans unequally and is a way to ignore a much needed conversation about race. So I stopped turning a blind-eye, and I started pushing for change.…show more content… However, the stars aligned and allowed me to make the movement for racial equality a very personal cause. Over the summer, I was lucky enough to volunteer at the Center for Civil and Human Rights teaching and helping visitors, as well as attend a week-long camp in Utah to debate on police brutality. My passion was also shaped by the simultaneous release of three pieces of media: Go Set a Watchman, Straight Outta Compton, and Between the World and Me. Though each is set in a different era, they tell the same story of racial division in America. Together they illustrate that racism hasn't improved, but rather has simply been ignored. I love that they opened my eyes, but at the same time, I want to put an end to history repeating
