My children have had friends over in the past few weeks who packed toy guns with them, along with the other odds and ends kids bring to a sleepover. I live in South Carolina so guns are not a matter of too much taboo. (I've asked my College classes before how many of them regularly hunt and gotten a majority response.) I would have thought nothing of toy guns being included along with the Playstations and Pokeman cards.
One child aimed the gun at the woman delivering pizza; I only realized the other child even had a toy gun when he started playing with it in the car. No orange tip was on it either. I was quick to put an end to both behaviors- but the thought that anyone might tell me these beautiful children deserved to lose their lives is too ridiculous for me to imagine.
They also are a flawless, picture-perfect rebuttal to the idea entertained by journalist Brandon Blackwell, who took it upon himself to figure out what was wrong with the victim of Cleveland police, Tamir Rice.
Twelve-years-old, playing alone at a park with a toy gun, aiming it *as one does* with a toy gun, Tamir was shot within seconds of the police arriving. Those who have viewed the video tape of the killing have said it looked like a "drive by", so quickly was the child felled by the officer.
Being around children this age so often, the idea that a well-raised child would react to police orders in some predicatble way is, again, too much for me to imagine anyone believing. I'm only around well-raised children, and the thought that I could get them to obey some order if I screamed it and gave them under two seconds is laughable. It's absurd.
Blackwell's rationale for associating Rice's biological father's domestic violence convictions with relevant "context" to the police killing of this young boy is as follows: "What did he experience growing up? Who were his role models? Did he have past interaction with police because of his parents? What were those interactions like? Did he grow up in a gun-owning household? How did he come to be randomly aiming a real-looking gun outside a Cleveland recreation center?"
Commenting on the story, which has been shared an amazing 8.000 times, a CASA volunteer (of all people!) has written that the violence of Rice's father has a relevance to his being killed. She assures us that children from "loving" homes don't act the way Rice did.
My eyes didn't deceive me: I am not wrong about how children from "loving" homes act with toy guns.
I just cannot imagine where this type of wishfulness about victims deserving it comes from. It is noticeable under any story about police aggression. I've written about it before. There's a percentage of the public that needs to think that no matter what, someone who is treated poorly by the police deserves it. I don't understand the psychological motivation for this type of outlook, but I do think I'm clear enough on how unethical it is to maintain.
Brandon writes, "This context matters." I say back to that "yes," and trying so hard to put a 12-year-old at fault for his murder is a matter for context, too.
If we want to understand why history has always included so much injustice, we can see why in those who think a 12-year-old playing with a toy had it coming.