It didn’t take long for people on social media to debate the merits of asking Samaria Rice to speak at this year’s events commemorating the shooting deaths of four Kent State University students on May 4, 1970.
After published reports announced that Rice was the keynote speaker for this year’s May 4 commemoration, public reaction on Wednesday was mixed.
Rice is the mother of Tamir Rice, 12, who was shot and killed by a Cleveland police officer while playing with a pellet gun at a park in November 2014. The city of Cleveland this week reached a $6 million settlement with the family.
Some critics questioned how Rice’s situation was related to the shooting deaths of students 46 years ago by the Ohio National Guard.
Others said her selection makes perfect sense because the incidents were senseless killings of youth by authorities with guns.
The theme of this year’s commemoration is “Black Lives Matter: Long Live the Memory of Kent State and Jackson State.”
The May 4th Task Force, the student-run group that plans the annual commemoration, reached out to Rice months ago to ask her to speak, faculty adviser Idris Kabir Syed said.
The students saw “the same linkage of violence and murder of young people” in both situations, he said.
“The students have been dealing with militarization of police issues for the last couple of years,” Syed said. “The students saw a lot of similarities with no indictments in the Rice case of the police officer, just like there was no indictment 40-plus years ago against any of the guardsmen.”
Rice will receive $3,100 for her speech. She is not the only speaker, and all of the speakers receive a speaking fee.
Online discussion
People have turned to social media to talk about the significance of the keynote speaker.
Words like “thug” and “disgrace” were quickly bandied about only to be countered by others reminding fellow posters that Tamir was just a child who made a terrible mistake and called for compassion toward a mother.
But it is clear the invitation has touched a nerve in Northeast Ohio where feelings toward the tragic events that unfolded on campus on May 4, 1970, still create consternation decades later.
Hundreds of people viewed the article about the scheduled speech from the Akron Beacon Journal’s Facebook page — an unusually large reaction to a story.
“I understand her heartbreak at losing her son, but I don’t see the two situations as being similar,” wrote a Tallmadge woman. “Real or fake [Tamir] pulled a gun, but the students at Kent State were unarmed.”
A Kent State graduate teaching assistant countered that she was puzzled over the anger directed at a grieving mother.
“The May 4th memorial has become a forum for addressing wrongs in our society,” she wrote. “By attacking this mother, you turn your back to the actual issue that black Americans are not treated fairly by authorities. It matters that we make it known that we care about justice.”
An equally spirited debate among students, alumni and parents of current students is being waged on the university’s Facebook page.
Some called the appearance a “disgrace” while others summed it up as being “brave.”
There was even a call for a boycott of donations to the university.
“As a lifelong resident of Kent who happens to remember May 4th and an alumni, I am not happy about this,” one Kent State graduate wrote. “Two different situations and one has nothing to do with the other.
“I find this very offensive.”
Syed said he has heard both sides of the story.
“I’m not surprised. This is not the first controversial speaker that the May 4th Task Force has had,” he said. “We had Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party and Bernardine Dohrn of the Weather Underground, so I’ve experienced some of the backlash before. … But what I will say is that I was saddened by the hatred, violent tendencies and the vitriol that I’ve heard in regards to Miss Rice and her son, Tamir. But I can’t be that surprised especially considering the history of the event itself and the same hatred occurred in the days following May 4th 1970, when Kent and Ohio residents said things like, ‘They should have killed more,’ and used language like that.”
Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com.