Lindsay Vix, 35, is a graduate student from Phoenix, Arizona. She is studying for a master’s degree in media and communication for social change.

I am a student at Adler University, Chicago, studying for a MA in media and communications for social change. While researching a paper, I read your coverage of the shooting of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy killed by a white police officer while playing in a park, a case which I had only been vaguely familiar with. One article in particular had a visceral impact on me. Steven Thrasher’s opinion article Tamir Rice was killed by white America’s irrational fear of black boys made me want to be actively involved in the #BlackLivesMatter movement, and moved me to become a white ally for racial justice in the US.

Lindsay Vix

Prior to returning to life as a student, I was working in marketing, but becoming increasingly frustrated with the political climate in my country. I wanted to be part of the solution, and found a course in Chicago that seemed to match my interests exactly, and help me towards a socially focused career. Early in the course we were set an assignment which required us to examine police brutality, and while trawling through articles from a variety of newspapers, I came across Thrasher’s piece in the Guardian. It was the most honest and relentlessly hard-hitting article I had read on the topic, and once I started reading I couldn’t stop.

I knew about the cases of Sandra Bland, Philando Castile and other black people who were shot by police or died in custody, but Rice’s case felt particularly harrowing – not least because I have a seven-year-old son. Now I was confronted with my own white privilege. Thrasher’s article shook me out of my naivety and made me see that for a long time, I had been burying my head in the sand about racism in America.

Of all the quotes that stood out, the line which said that “Cleveland police officer Tim Loehmann shot Tamir Rice dead in less than two seconds because the child ‘gave me no choice’” especially sickened me. Officers claimed they thought this little boy was a grown man. This highlighted the irrational fear felt by some white Americans towards black people, as well as the ignorance, the sense of entitlement and the potential for both of these to spill into racism.

Before reading this article I had consciously refused to see colour, and had considered that as inherent to a liberal outlook. But now I know how crucial it is that we do see colour and acknowledge just how far away we are from achieving racial equality.

This was the first time I questioned whether I could trust the country I live in. I am a student at a school that has a strong interest in social change, a mother of a young boy, and the wife of a veteran, but beyond all of this I am a person who believes in good. The situation is totally unacceptable, and we have a lot of work to do as individuals and as a society. I’m planning to continue studying after my course for a PhD in communications and critical media studies. I want to move forward and see how I can address this issue in more depth through both research and working directly with students.