Ferguson Movement Isn't Just About Ferguson Anymore

There has been a lot of hate going around the internet about people's reactions to the events in Ferguson. Almost all the negative attention is coming from white people who have little to no social interactions with people of color and seem utterly unable to understand where all the anger is coming from. As an example, yesterday a few players on the St. Louis Rams football team raised their hands in the "hands up" gesture that has been adopted by the Ferguson protesters during their pre-game entry. There was immediately a strong negative reaction from the police union and many white fans who took offence to the gesture. The reaction to such a public show of support for the protesters is telling of the views of different sectors of our society. Most leftists and people of color were quick to show support for the gesture while the negative reactions was almost exclusively from whites. Most negative reactions come in the form of a statement like this, "Why are you showing support for a thug who robbed a store and attacked a police officer?" This statement is loaded in many ways because it focuses squarely on the events surrounding Michael Brown's death and is loaded with racial stereotypes about black youths. In the days following the death of Michael Brown it became evident that regardless of the actual events in Ferguson, the protest movement that was rising was focusing more on the issues of police militarization, police brutality, and racially motivated police practices than just on the events in Ferguson. This is why I say that the Ferguson Movement is bigger than Ferguson itself. These are issues that are deeply rooted in our police and our criminal justice system. Police are regularly allowed to use brutal measures with people of color in order to ensure their "compliance" while if similar treatment were used in white communities there would be an uprising. It is telling of the deep rooted nature of these issues that minority communities have not acted sooner. They have been so terrified and forced into submission by the police and our judicial system that it took a tragic and explosive situation to rouse them out of their oppression.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that people who are against what is happening in Ferguson need to look past the events themselves to see the bigger picture. This isn't about Darren Wilson or Michael Brown anymore, it is a debate over the role and actions of our nation's law enforcement community, especially in communities of color. Until the detractors can see past the surface of the situation they will never understand why the protesters are so motivated and willing to confront the police. This isn't just about Ferguson, it's about America.

We live in a state of de facto apartheid where minorities are brutally oppressed by the police, have little hope for a good education in their underfunded schools, and are destined to a life of poverty because of a total lack of opportunity for good paying jobs in their own communities. The most depressing aspect in all of this is that many whites refuse to even acknowledge that these problems exist. When whites look at communities of color they choose to see the crime and gangs rather than the systemic failure on the part of society to alleviate the roots causes of problems in minority communities. Instead of providing better education and good job opportunities, whites focus on increasing policing and giving minority criminals harsh prison sentences. We will never be able to solve the inequalities between whites and minorities without addressing the root causes of inequality. "Better policing" and "tough on crime" approaches only have the effect of glossing over the problems rather than actually fixing the problems in those communities.

About the Ferguson Decision

Well we have witnessed yet another incident of the racist way in which justice is administered in this nation. People of color are arrested on a massive scale for petty crimes and sentenced to long prison terms. Meanwhile, the white officer who was charged to protect that community shot an unarmed black teenager and was allowed to go free without even so much as a trial. There is a popular phrase used in the media and legal circles that a prosecutor could "try a sandwich" because of the influence that they have over the evidence that is presented to grand juries. The simple fact that the grand jury chose not to bring the case to trial shows that the prosecutor either ignored his basic power to sway the grand jury to any particular side or actively tried to argue in favor of the officer's actions. It is almost unheard of for a grand jury to be given such an independent hand to investigate. The duty of the prosecutor is to work as an advocate in favor of prosecution no matter who the subject of the trial would be. The St. Louis County Prosecutor has vacated this basic requirement of his office. Say what you want about the guilt or innocence of Office Wilson, the case deserved to go to trial where we could see the judicial process in action. Instead we saw the Prosecutor use the Grand Jury as the de facto trial where the innocence or guilt of Officer Wilson was decided in secret, away from the public eye, and without the proper due process of law.

In the wake of this horrible injustice we are confronted with the fact that people of color are valued as being of lower worth than white lives in our society. Hundreds of innocent minorities are shot dead by police with no recourse for the victims' families. We have seen that the police of this country know they can act with impunity against anyone who raises their voice in protest to police brutality. Peaceful protests of all kinds have been met with tear gas and riot gear. How can we have a peaceful dialog when protests are met with violence and repression? John F Kennedy once said that "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable." We are seeing a build up to that violent revolution because EVERY DAY people who seek change are met with violence. EVERY DAY those working to improve the system from within are met with resistance from entrenched corruption. EVERY DAY we see that in our so-called democracy people are confronted by the reality of our police state. A day of reckoning is coming where those in power will no longer be able to use violence as a means to repress us. We have tried the peaceful route and it has shown to be a fruitless endeavor. If we continue to have our needs ignored and our rights squashed, the powers that be should not be surprised when the peaceful demonstrations turn into a violent uprising. I am not a supporter of violence but when you prevent people from having any peaceful recourse for their grievances, the only remaining option for them to have their voices heard is through rebellion.