The South African Civil Society Information Service
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
A nonprofit news agency promoting social justice. Seeking answers to the question:
How do we make democracy work for the poor?
27 Nov 2014
A grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, has decided Officer Darren Wilson will not be indicted after killing unarmed teenager Michael Brown. In reaction to the decision, protests have swept the U.S. in cities like New York all the way to the Golden Coast of Oakland, California. Professor Gerald Horne and civil rights organizer Kevin Alexander Gray contend that the Ferguson grand jury decision is in line with U.S. history. Gray, co-editor of the book, Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence, calls for independent citizens' review boards to examine police violence in local communities and endorses the idea of a “Michael Brown law” requiring police to wear body cameras.
© The Real News Network
Editor’s Note: You might also be interested in this excellent analysis from Carol Anderson, an associate professor of African American studies and history at Emory University, written shortly after Michael Brown was killed and published by the Washington Post, “Ferguson isn’t about black rage against cops. It’s white rage against progress”.
She argues, “When you think of Ferguson, don’t just think of black resentment at a criminal justice system that allows a white police officer to put six bullets into an unarmed black teen. Consider the economic dislocation of black America. Remember a Florida judge instructing a jury to focus only on the moment when George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin interacted, thus transforming a 17-year-old, unarmed kid into a big, scary black guy, while the grown man who stalked him through the neighborhood with a loaded gun becomes a victim. Remember the assault on the Voting Rights Act. Look at Connick v. Thompson, a partisan 5-4 Supreme Court decision in 2011 that ruled it was legal for a city prosecutor’s staff to hide evidence that exonerated a black man who was rotting on death row for 14years…Only then does Ferguson make sense. It’s about white rage.” Read more at the Washington Post.
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