At 17, Anthony Price has been student council president at Shaw High School, he's on the executive board for the Northeast Ohio Chapter of Young Black Democrats, and in April, he won the Princeton Prize in Race Relations. Spurred by the police shooting deaths of Timothy Russell and Malissa Williams in 2012 and Tamir Rice in November, Price moderated a sold-out panel discussion for the Youth Forum Council at the City Club of Cleveland in January that aired on CSPAN. Price speaks to us.
Q. How difficult is it at your age to talk about race and its impact on our city?
A. We really don't have conversations every day about it. ... Schools don't really focus on talking about race. I think schools don't think it's a problem.
Q. How have you seen racism play out in your school or in your community?
A. When I go into a store, people look at me in a different way because I'm tall. I'm 6-foot-3 and African-American. People either pull their bags close to them, or when I'm [going] in their direction, they start walking away and are afraid I might do something or rob them. It's really depressing.
Q. How do you combat racism?
A. It starts by being an individual. When I experience racism, at first it can be really disheartening, really depressive and just disrespectful. But I think of the voiceless, that I have to be the advocate for change and I have to speak up.
Q. What can we take away from events such as the trial of Michael Brelo and the death of Tamir Rice?
A. In order for us to get justice, we have to have conversations like this. We have to keep protesting peacefully. We have to stop putting things under the rug, and we have to stop tripping over the things that are being put under that rug.
