November 22nd, 2014 is a date that I will remember for as long as I live. On November 22nd, 2014, 12 year old Tamir Rice was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer as he played in the park at Cudell Recreation Center. Black people had been killed by the police before; and I had watched and been upset, and felt fear and saddened. But when Tamir was killed my sadness changed to anger. I had to do something.

I had been learning about the killing of black folks since Eric Garner. Prior to that, I was a criminal justice student, excited about the prospect of becoming a police officer, like my father was. I vividly remember struggling to justify the actions of the officer that killed Eric Garner. "Maybe if he had spoken calmly, or just submitted to the arrest. Maybe he shouldn't have been selling cigarettes in the first place." As empty as these points may be, they showed the struggle I was facing; here I was, the son of a police officer, months away from entering the police academy, seeing people that look like me killed at the hands of the police. People whose hair curled in the same pattern as mine, whose skin was dark like my mother's. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, killed for no reason other than being black and existing.

After Eric Garner came Michael Brown. I attended a small rally in solidarity, and like much of America, watched as St. Louis area police attacked protesters in Ferguson as they peacefully protested the killing. Seeing Mike Brown's body left on the pavement for hours shook me fully from my state of dissonance. His killing showed me that as a black person in America, I could not afford to be confused. I saw his mother as my mother, and imagined the suffering she would experience if Mike had been me.

Around this time I began to disconnect from my coursework. I became less enthused in classes, eventually becoming angry and combative towards my instructors and classmates. I became disgusted with lessons, and saw classes like "Ethics In Criminal Justice" as hour long stretches of nothing but empty words. I eventually stopped going to class altogether, changing my major to effectively wash my hands of all I had learned.

I felt for everyone I learned of. I had cousins Akai Gurley's age. I hugged my nieces tighter when I was told of Aiyana Stanley-Jones.

But I felt the most pain over Tamir Rice. I'm still not entirely sure why. I think I felt this pain because it was marked by understanding. I watched a child die. I watched a twelve year old child, killed for playing in the park with a toy. Shot dead in split seconds by an officer who should have never been given a badge in the first place. At twelve he probably didn't understand what could happen. He couldn't have fathomed what could have happened when he walked towards the police car that was pulling up, especially since children are taught from as young as possible to always trust the police. When the video was released, I lost count of how many times I watched. I played the video back to back. Repeated and rewound it. Tried to count the seconds from when the car pulled up, to when the door opened, to when he dropped to the ground. I watched with tears in my eyes. i watched when my eyes were dry because I couldn't cry anymore. I watched with my jaw tensed and my fists balled in rage. He was twelve.

I went to the vigils held at Cudell, and stood in community where Tamir had been gunned down. I held in tears as I watched his family grieve. I held in rage as I listened to white reporters suggest that he had somehow provoked the officer that shot and killed him. I stood and listened to speaker after speaker remember Tamir and lay out the work that was about to begin. I wondered where my place in that work would be. After that first vigil following Tamir's death I attended another the same night at Case Western Reserve University. It was there that I figured out where my work would be done: In bookstore basements and on college campuses, in radio studios and city council chambers; and perhaps most importantly, in the streets.

In community with the people I met in these spaces, I learned some important lessons. I learned the lengths that an oppressive system will go to for the sake of it's own survival. But I also saw firsthand the resiliency of oppressed peoples. Although we like to say we're "not our grandparents," in many ways we are; strong, unbending, intelligent, and resourceful. These may manifest differently, sure. We may not fight back the same way as our grandparents, but like them, we won't stop fighting back.

I never met Tamir Rice. He grew up on a completely different side of the city as me; we were born in different decades and our paths never crossed. But nonetheless, Tamir changed my life; his death showed me the danger of apathy, and the importance of fighting. The gazebo is gone at Cudell; the City of Cleveland tore it down in an effort to show that it was moving on from the events that took place underneath the structure. But it's important that we remember Tamir, and the events of November 22nd, 2014. It's important that we keep moving forward, that we keep fighting. The gazebo may be gone, but the memory of Tamir Rice lives on.