Today we have a new installment in . In the last three months, we鈥檝e heard from law enforcement, pastors, residents of various neighborhoods, high school students, and others. Today we hear from Nigeria Gould, a second year Ohio State student majoring in arts management and theater, who still performs with Cleveland鈥檚 . She grew up in the , where 12-year-old Tamir Rice was shot by police in November 2014. He had been playing with a pellet gun. Ideastream鈥檚 Tony Ganzer began this interview as all pieces in this series do: by asking what should community policing look like, and how far are we from it?
GOULD: 鈥淐ommunity policing is simple: all you have to do is just get to know the people around you. You don鈥檛 even have to live in that area, but if you go and visit and at least try to get to know these people, it helps so much with progressing like crime rates, etc. And Cleveland is really far from that. This has been a constant issue that has been addressed numerous times, and no one has chosen to do anything about it.鈥�
GANZER: 鈥淗ow did the shooting of Tamir Rice affect you, personally?鈥�
GOULD: 鈥淓verything鈥檚 been going too far. And hearing the multiple stories, and then hearing that a young boy lost his life, and there is no justice being done, and to think that every day, even after the incident, I was walking past that area鈥t hurt. It hurt cuz I don鈥檛 have any younger siblings, and I鈥檓 not a parent but I love children, and to know that a young 12-year-old is gone in the blink of an eye鈥or playing鈥as just too much to handle, especially with many other things in this country happening.鈥�
GANZER: 鈥淵ou are an artist, you鈥檙e an actor. Can you talk about how all of the emotions and everything that you鈥檝e processed, I guess, affects your art?鈥�
GOULD: 鈥淪o recently this past summer we did , and the story is about a young man who gets drafted to go to the Vietnam War. And while my personal character in theater couldn鈥檛 relate to that cuz I was a young, black woman, I brought it back. Cuz there was a moment where it was the KKK lynching someone who was black, in our show, and I personally took it upon myself to see it as a race-based show for myself. And being an actor, and like putting myself in to this realm of, 鈥榠t鈥檚 the same.鈥� Like here I am in this era-piece, but there are still lynchings. They may not be done with nooses, but there are still lynchings. There are still people dying. When I was doing that show, and when I鈥檝e been doing a lot of race-based things, it digs into the deep part that I may not want to acknowledge. If I don鈥檛 want to acknowledge it, I at least should have the audience around me acknowledge it.鈥�
GANZER: 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot of attention on 鈥榊oung Black Males鈥� but should there be more attention on the young woman鈥檚 perspective, do you think, in the conversation we鈥檙e going through now?鈥�
GOULD: 鈥淵es, I definitely feel as if there should be. There are many young black men names, and it鈥檚 so sad that there are so many, but there are also nearly as many young black women and we don鈥檛 know those names. We know Sandra Bland鈥ho else? And there are more. There are trans-victims dying. We have a very one-sided sense of who we want to stick up for. And while it鈥檚 understandable because the male victims keep piling up, up, and up, these female victims are dying just as fast.鈥�
GANZER: 鈥淲hat do you hope to do after you graduate?鈥�
GOULD: 鈥淚 personally plan on opening up my own theater in an urban-based area, having a social-change, social-activism side to it, and having a focus on young black women. I know that growing up, I came from a single-parent household, and I was the only girl, so I did have a very strong, like, connection and focus on how I should be, and what I should aspire to be as a young black woman. So of course it鈥檚 going to be for men and women, all ages, very open, but we discard the young black girls so much that they need some place where they can say 鈥榟ere I am valued and here I get attention.鈥欌��
GANZER: 鈥淎re you overall hopeful for the process that鈥檚 going on in Cleveland, or where Cleveland could be?鈥�
GOULD: 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to say, because, being that I鈥檓 going on 20-years-old, I鈥檝e never see much change for Cleveland that should happen, happen. I have hope that the momentum can keep going, and I have hope that the community can stay strong and do what they as people feel is right, because it鈥檚 gone too far.鈥�
