Ferguson

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What Goes Down in Ferguson is an Asian American Concern – In Fact, It’s a 99% Issue

 

Precariat: A social class defined by the shared experience of precarity, a condition of existence without predictability or stability, particularly as pertains to employment and economic security

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Make no mistake. Ferguson is an Asian American issue. The exclusion and abuse of Black people and immigrants in the United States goes hand in hand. Together, they represent a loophole in democracy through which the 1 percent are moving an agenda that is making us all precariats.

 

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Source: www.racefiles.com

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Ferguson Police Chief Issues Apology to Michael Brown’s Family

 

ST. LOUIS — As the parents of Michael Brown appeared Thursday in the nation’s capital to call on the Justice Department to take over the case of their 18-year-old son whom police shot in August, the chief in the St. Louis suburb where he was killed apologized to the Brown family.


Police Chief Thomas Jackson in Ferguson, Mo., issued a video apology Thursday to Brown’s parents and peaceful protesters, according to a St. Louis public-relations firm’s video.

“I’m truly sorry for the loss of your son. I’m also sorry that it took so long to remove Michael from the street,” said Jackson, dressed casually in a red polo shirt. “You have every right to be angry and upset. The time that it took involved the completion of the work of the investigators to preserve physical evidence and determine the facts, but 4½ hours was simply too long.”

 

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Source: goodblacknews.org

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Washington University Libraries Builds Ferguson Digital Archives

 

HT Steven Riley @mixed_race

 

“The library at Washington University in St. Louis is building a digital repository called “Documenting Ferguson.” The collection will provide the community with a space to save the media they’ve captured since the death of Michael Brown.

 

The online collection is open for anyone to contribute material.The archive will accept photos, audio, video, and written stories.”

 

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Source: news.stlpublicradio.org

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DOJ Investigation Of Ferguson Police Department

 

On August 29, 2014, I wrote that when searching for a copy of the $40 million lawsuit filed against the Ferguson, MO police department, that I discovered other lawsuits that name various Ferguson police officers as defendants. In that post, I also wrote that the U.S. Department of Justice has a division to receive and investigate complaints against law enforcement who violate civil rights under color and claim of official right. Considering that some citizens of Ferguson stated that no private attorney was willing to go against Ferguson, it was my opinion that their only option was to file complaints with the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.

Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder held a press conference announcing that the Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the Ferguson police department. The video is below. Please note that he says the investigation includes if the Ferguson police department has violated the constitution and/or federal law.   Those are two different things under the DOJ.

 

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Source: blackbutterfly7.wordpress.com

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Ferguson’s Mayor Faces The Heat As Forum Dissects City’s Divisions [AUDIO]

 

 

An audience member shows Ferguson Mayor James Knowles III a rubber bullet wound that he says he received during unrest in the north St. Louis County city. A forum sponsored by St. Louis Public Radio became heated, with the biggest ire being directed at Knowles. NPR’s Michel Martin is at center.
Credit Jason Rosenbaum, St. Louis Public Radio

 

 

A forum Thursday evening peering into Ferguson’s longstanding tensions as well as the St. Louis region’s racial divisions became angry and heated, with most of a crowd’s ire directed at the town’s mayor.

Audience members expressed searing criticism of Ferguson’s governance and leadership, both of which have come under fire since one of the Ferguson’s police officers shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.

 

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Source: news.stlpublicradio.org

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White America’s Response to the Killing of Mike Brown…

 

“Last night, I made the abominable mistake of reading the comments under Fox News’ Facebook page’s post of the alleged Mike Brown “strong-arm robbery” video. What I read was altogether infuriating and heartbreaking, yet I could not stop reading. Many of the comments, by what appeared to be “average white Americans,” were seething, sarcastic, racist, and steeped in hate. They called Mike Brown a “thug” and spoke about his killing in a bizarre celebratory way―some implicitly and others explicitly expressing how the video justifies his murder. Some of the comments even unnecessarily brought up Trayvon Martin, also speaking about him in the most derogatory and disparagingly of ways. These white Facebook users were so quick to dehumanize, demonize, generalize, speak hatefully, and justify the death of a young black man―in rhetoric oozing with racism, white supremacy, and white privilege―that I began to wonder if they were able to acknowledge that Mike Brown was a human. How and why do they hate him so much?
It made me sick to my stomach.
I think the part that was most troubling to me was the fact that most of these white people making these horrendous comments were not the anonymous, faceless, cowardly, racist internet trolls that I often encounter on Twitter―though enraging, I can somehow shrug them off as “fake.” These people had faces, rather. These folks were seeminglyreal people, behind seemingly real Facebook accounts―some of their profile pictures were family pictures or pictures of them with their kids, even lovingly embracing them. I imagine they are people who have authentic, caring relationships with individuals who they choose to love deeply―friends, brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces, cousins, grandmothers, grandfathers. But the hatred they verbally spewed for a dead black teenager they do not even know, and the dehumanizing nature of their discourse, led me to begin to see them void of humanity―their dehumanization of Mike Brown was the cause of my dehumanization of them. It’s a vicious cycle. It’s truly ugly.

 

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Source: thoughtsofbrown.com

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WHAT STANDS BETWEEN US – Lee Mun Wah

 

James Baldwin once said that “America is one tough town.” Those words came back to me as I thought of what is going on these past few weeks in Ferguson, Missouri. So much of the focus has been on the issue of a white police officer killing a young black man, Michael Brown, but almost nothing is said about the environment that creates these types of scenarios that are becoming all too familiar in describing the state of racial relations in the United States, particularly how they negatively impact African Americans.  Often, when the issue of a racial divide arises or is even intimated, denial and shock quickly fills the room, as was evidenced in the past two days when an all white male Fox News panel showed disdain for Capt. Ron Johnson (who is Black) for sympathizing with the African American community over the killing of Michael Brown. Bo Dietl, immediately said, “We’re dividing black and white again. America has no color, it’s all one color.” So often times I have wondered…so, what is that ‘one color’ and what would it mean if we did see color?

Soon afterwards, the mayor of Ferguson declared that “There’s not a racial divide in Ferguson.” One of the great myths in this country is that if we say that ‘everything is fine’ loud and long enough, the problem will go away. This is perhaps because as someone once said, “When the truth becomes too hard to bear, we create another.”

 

So what kinds of environments, attitudes, and behaviors ‘create’ a racial divide?  First of all, having an almost all white police force creates an ‘ethnic vacuum’ that shields the white officers from ever having to see outside their ‘white bubble’ or to get feedback on their actions and attitudes from someone who is non-white. Another is never interviewing officers prior to hire to see if they possess any racial prejudices towards any particular group of people and how that might heighten their perceptions and feelings of distrust and fearing for their safety. This may explain why so many blacks are shot repeatedly, sometimes over twenty times.

 

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Source: www.stirfryseminars.com

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Police Officer in Ferguson Needlessly Waves Assault Weapon in Face of Peaceful Protesters And Threatens to Kill Them [VIDEO]

Corporal Ray Albers of the St. Ann Police Department approached peaceful demonstrators last night with his assault weapon drawn and threatening to kill them.

Source: ushypocrisy.com