ABSTRACT
A 12-year-old boy is shot in a public park on the grounds of being a threat, yet despite the locational relevance there was a silence within leisure research. With this in mind, the aim of this manuscript is a manifesto on the manner that leisure-related research on race, social justice, quality of life, and leisure studies (more broadly, as an academy) must confront the silence with dealing with racism as structural and systematic. If we are to advocate in varying ways on the right of populations to enjoy the life sustaining opportunities that are afforded to them as citizens through leisure, then we must also hold ourselves accountable when those very leisure settings fail to deliver on that promise, and become life-threatening. Tamir Rice, is a case of the duality of silence on the structural nature of racism while also an opportunity to assert a social relevance for leisure research.
