I have no strong opinion about what happened between Michael Brown and the police officer who shot him. The press and social media are full of hyperbolics on both side of the story, but we will likely never know what really happened. I do have a strong opinion about the para military reaction, its return to the notion of the public and the press as the enemy, and its perennial use to keep the black community at bay. The police have a mess on their hands because, 150 years after the Civil War and 50 years after the civil rights movement, black people in America are as oppressed as ever. This time, however, the cops get tanks, body armor, mace, riot gear, tear gas and rubber bullets, and frankly they are enjoying it way too much for a civil society. Theyre police, not soldiers, and even the most unruly crowd is not the enemy, they are our neighbors. The situation can most successfully ratchet down when we stop playing Kent State 1970 and start looking into why this kind of violence can happen again and again.
Posted on: Fri, 22 Aug 2014 19:45:58 +0000
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