Millions of tears have fallen for black sons, brothers, lovers, and friends whose assailants took or maimed their lives and then simply went on their way.” –Aberjhani
Good cop, bad cop.  Good kid, bad kid.  Good child, Black child.  Status quo, never had a chance.  Should my child be waving an airsoft gun in the air in light of gun misuse and perception in America?  The answer is no.  But something got into Tamir Rice, who removed an orange marking from his toy BB gun that he holstered in his waist.  He didn’t think that by not taking the cops seriously, he would not be taking his life seriously.   
A man calling 911 told dispatchers the boy was on a swing set and pointing a pistol that was “probably fake” and scaring everyone, but officers weren’t told by the emergency dispatcher that the caller thought the gun might not be real, the president of the Cleveland Police Patrolmen’s Association told the Associated Press.  The perception is that the two Cleveland police officers who are now on administrative leave could have tased the child, according to Rice’s father.  They could have approached him closer.  The child was not yelling, being violent, or defying them.  They just chose to shoot, and they chose to shoot because it’s efficient.  
The worth of a Black child is meaningless in certain parts of America.  George Zimmerman thought so.  “Those punk kids, they get away with everything,” according to Zimmerman.  George made sure that one did not.  George, like many of us, grew up in a suburb, city, or town that had pre-conceptions about Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, and other races.  My own mother thought all Black people could tap dance because that is what she saw in the movies in the 1930s and 1940s.  She had a Black friend at the nursing home in Ramsey County.  My mother would clarify each statement about Blacks by referring to her friend: if Gloria Owens did or did not do it, said it or did not say it, it meant it was Black behavior verbatim.  
When I first moved to Los Angeles in 1987, I met one of Magic Johnson’s friends.  I went to an upscale party in Altadena, where the Blacks who “made it” hung out.  They were rich and did as they pleased.  I was no wet-behind-the-ears Midwestern girl.  I was the only white person who had lived on campus at an all-Black college in North Carolina, because I wanted to save the world from racism.  I transferred from UW-LaCrosse to North Carolina Central University at age 19 on an exchange program.  I had the idea that I was going to make an impact by being down there.  
I found out that the Black population did not need my help.  They did not need me to save them.  They were self-sufficient students, most in the top 10 percent of their class, and from the upper East Coast.  I worked in the nitty gritty of public housing in Virginia, where racism was an overtone, not an undertone.  There was no class warfare, just accepted class division.  Later in Stoughton, Wisconsin, I started my own anti-racism organization in lieu of different states rejecting the idea of a Martin Luther King national holiday.  I did receive one death threat by the KKK.  
Even if people are not born to be civil rights freedom fighters, the cycle of racism has heightened again, and there is opportunity for involvement.  Michael Brown did not need to die.  At best, the police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, could have not shot when Michael Brown put his hands up.  At worst, he could have shot Michael Brown in the knee and called for back-up.  Two days before Darren Wilson’s indictment was announced by St. Louis County, Missouri, another-12 year-old Black boy was killed by Cleveland cops.  Why?  Because the dispatcher did not give the whole story and because the cops did not think of viable alternatives at the scene of the alleged crime.  
These are the stories we know about.  But silently, socially, and formidably, a social movement is being formed under our thumb.  People came to Ferguson from all over the country a few weeks ago in order to have an organized, thought-out demonstration with lined-up speakers on police brutality and the carriage of injustice across our nation.  Students came from as far as California and Florida.  This is no Black Panther movement.  It’s a movement on enlightenment and a battle with words.  It is not going to die out, because cops will continue to make decisions that impede child safety.  Just like Jena 6, where over 30,000 Black activists descended on a southern Texas town to protest another act of injustice against Black high school students, the movement is not going to fade.  
Raising bricks and shedding blood may be the next consequence, because law enforcement and civil authority is simply not listening.  Obama’s plead to avoid violence came out like a hollow ring on the news this morning.  “We are a nation built on the rule of law, so we have to accept this decision was the grand jury’s to make.”  Like hell we do.  The rule of law is only validated by the justice system being able to identify what went wrong versus what went right during a series of events in which law enforcement confronted a citizen.  In this case, I go with street justice.  Street justice will even out the pockets of privilege and deception in the depths of the false compass of authority.  My bloody hands will cause me to die for that injustice, and with my blood the score will be settled.