journolist:#BlackLivesMatter: One Year After FergusonPeople Killed by Police in 2015: 704Ferguson an
journolist:#BlackLivesMatter: One Year After FergusonPeople Killed by Police in 2015: 704Ferguson and Beyond: How a new civil rights movement began (Guardian)In this moment, as we reflect on where we are, how we got here and where we are going, I am reminded of the difference between accountability and justice – and of our commitment to both. Accountability is the consent decree between the US justice department and the Ferguson and Cleveland police departments, and the reparations for the victims of the torture of the Chicago police department. Accountability is important, but accountability is not our ultimate goal. Accountability is not justice.Man shot by police in Ferguson after he fired at officers (St. Louis Dispatch) A peaceful day of protest and remembrance dissolved into chaos late Sunday when a man fired multiple shots at four St. Louis County plainclothes detectives in an SUV. The detectives fired back and the shooter was struck, said county Police Chief Jon Belmar. He was in critical condition. Tyrone Harris identified the victim as his son, Tyrone Harris Jr., 18, of St. Louis. Harris said shortly after 3 a.m. that his son had just gotten out of surgery. He said his son graduated from Normandy High School and that he and Michael Brown Jr. “were real close.” “We think there’s a lot more to this than what’s being said,” Harris Sr. said.One Year Later in Ferguson, Still Seeing Wrongs (New York Times) The city of Ferguson, which is about two-thirds black, has taken some steps to address concerns about policies that the Justice Department described as discriminatory. It has hired a black interim city manager and a black interim police chief. It has released city officials who were discovered to have sent racist emails. It has hired a new municipal judge. On the state level, the Legislature passed a law capping the amount of revenue that cities can collect from traffic tickets, responding to accusations that municipalities were targeting mostly black motorists with unfair fines and fees. Still, the people gathered here on Sunday said they wanted to see more done.Michael Brown is honored peacefully in several cities (Washington Post) On Sunday, hundreds of people in Ferguson marked the anniversary of the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer with 4 ½ minutes of silence. According to news reports, the crowd gathered at 12:02 p.m., the time 18-year-old Michael Brown was killed, and the period of silence symbolized the 4 ½ hours that Brown’s body lay in the street before police removed it. Two doves were released at the end. As the protesters headed to a church at the edge of the city, about six shots were heard; it was unclear who fired them or whether anyone was injured. A police spokesman said that the shots did not appear to be aimed at the marchers.Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter and the racial divide in Seattle (Seattle Globalist) On Saturday, Bernie Sanders came to Seattle for a fundraiser and rally. At the rally at Westlake Park to celebrate the 80th birthday of Social Security, two Black Lives Matter protesters took the stage, and the microphone, and demanded to be heard. Their disruption led to boos from the crowd and some calls for their arrest, as well as the end of the rally. For the rest of the afternoon and evening, social media was in an uproar over the actions of these two women. Many stated that the women were just hurting the #BLM cause, others wondered why Sanders was targeted and not other candidates. Some claimed that the women were plants paid by the Clinton campaign to stir up trouble. The reaction to these protesters shed light on the hidden Seattle that most black people know well — the Seattle that prefers politeness to true progress, the Seattle that is more offended by raised voices than by systemic oppression, the Seattle that prioritizes the comfort of middle-class white liberals over justice for people of color.The Ferguson Protests Worked (Huffington Post)Police left Brown’s body in the street for hours, and a community that had felt abused by the authorities for years erupted. Vandalism broke out, along with peaceful protests, and militarized police departments aggressively cracked down. The clashes attracted international news coverage. Riots and protests injured numerous people and caused extensive property damage. The controversy surrounding Brown’s killing and the police response left the community reeling. But the protests, in many ways, worked. Those abusive municipal court practices, which many residents said had fueled widespread disrespect for authority, are being reined in. And the outcry spread far beyond the Midwest. In many ways, the Ferguson protests changed America.Michael Brown, One Year Later (ColorLines) Because so much has happened in just one year, it’s tempting to wax poetic about what this grisly anniversary means. But if there is to be poetry, it must be located in the everyday work of people across the nation who are organizing, chanting, marching, disrupting, boycotting, teaching, posting, creating, praying, losing their jobs and going to jail to assert what shouldn’t need to be stated—that black lives matter. Tef Poe and Tara Thompson, St. Louis-area organizers who represent Hands Up United, have done a lot of this everyday work that we’re describing. In mid-July they were arrested after participating in a small protest against the St. Louis police shooting and paralyzing of Brandon Claxton, a black 16-year-old.One Year Later: Reflections on the Ferguson Uprising (RH Reality Check) It’s not as if direct action hasn’t made a difference. And Lord knows change was and is needed in Ferguson and the greater St. Louis region. The Ferguson Uprising didn’t cause a racial divide; it ripped the scab off and exposed our long-festering wound for all the world to see. For decades, Black residents in Ferguson and the many municipalities that make up St. Louis County have protested corrupt courts set up to fund local governments through outrageous fines and discriminatory police practices. Every year Missouri’s attorney general produces a report on racial profiling, and every year newspapers write the same story with a revised headline about the fact that Black people are far more likely to get stopped than other drivers. In 2014, that rate increased by 9 percent, meaning Black drivers were 75 percent more likely than whites behind the wheel to be stopped based on our proportionate share of the driving-age population. Black residents have long protested unfair police practices, so the Department of Justice report on Ferguson wasn’t shocking to those of us who know all too well that the system is rigged.Ferguson One Year Later: Turning Anger to Action (PNS) The cameras have stopped rolling and the national news crews have gone home, but in the year since the shooting death of Michael Brown, grassroots programs have been driving change in Ferguson. In the past year, said Joshua Saleem, who heads the peace education program run by the American Friends Service Committee, the group has offered three Freedom Schools in the St. Louis area - workshops where young people meet to talk openly about poverty, race and oppression, and strategies for involvement “to shift their understanding of racism from an individual kind of ‘I hate you’ kind of mindset to a perspective of racism that involves how systems and institutions operate and deal with and interact with people of color in this country.” Is #BlackLivesMatter The Next Civil Rights Movement? (Dissent) In framing racial discrimination in human rights terms, the Black Lives Matter movement is today picking up the baton of civil rights activists before them. The parents of Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis have raised the issue of discriminatory policing with members of the UN Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination in Geneva. The parents of Mike Brown along with representatives of organizations in Ferguson and Chicago traveled to Geneva to share information about their cases with the UN Committee Against Torture in November 2014. Brown’s parents submitted a statement to the Committee that read in part, “The killing of Mike Brown and the abandonment of his body in the middle of a neighborhood street is but an example of the utter lack of regard for, and indeed dehumanization of, black lives by law enforcement personnel.” Following its examination of the United States, the Committee Against Torture recommended that it undertake independent and prompt investigations into allegations of police brutality and expressed concerns about racial profiling and the “growing militarization of policing activities.” -- source link