More on Ferguson

Plenty has been written in the last few days already; I wanted to highlight a few interesting pieces you may not have seen.

The Economics of Police Militarism

One moment, we see a young man with a welt from a rubber bullet between his eyes; the next, three officers with big guns are charging at another black man who has his hands up. On Thursday, Jelani Cobb filed a powerful account from the sidewalks and homes of Ferguson. Cobb asks about “the intertwined economic and law-enforcement issues underlying the protests,” including, for instance, the court fees that many people in Ferguson face, which often begin with minor infractions and eventually become “their own, escalating, violations.” “We have people who have warrants because of traffic tickets and are effectively imprisoned in their homes,” Malik Ahmed, the C.E.O. of an organization called Better Family Life, told Cobb. “They can’t go outside because they’ll be arrested. In some cases, people actually have jobs but decide that the threat of arrest makes it not worth trying to commute outside their neighborhood.”

The Fury in Ferguson and Our Forgotten Lessons from History

Despite the crystal-clear conclusions drawn by the Kerner Commission about why the '60s had seen so much urban unrest, and what would happen if we ignored the lessons of the these rebellions, we are right back where we were 50 years ago. As this Commission noted without equivocation: The urban rebellions of the 1960s stemmed from specific triggers such as police brutality and, more generally, because "discrimination and segregation have long permeated much of American life; they now threaten the future of every American." Indeed, this group of experts warned, if this nation doesn't "press for a national resolution" to discrimination, it will become "two Societies, One Black, One White -- Separate and Unequal."

These chickens have indeed come home to roost. If we don't fully understand the fury in Ferguson, rather than dismiss it as senseless urban violence, and if we don't move swiftly and concretely to ensure justice for the family of Michael Brown -- making clear whose violence started this -- then we are in for many more long, hot summers. Guaranteed.

Autopsy Shows Michael Brown was Struck At Least 6 Times



White St. Louis Has some Awful Things to Say About Ferguson

"Our opinion," said the talkative one in a group of six women in their sixties sitting outside the Starbucks, "is the media should just stay out of it because they're riling themselves up even more."

"The protesters like seeing themselves on TV," her friend added.

"It's just a small group of people making trouble," said another.

"The kid wasn't really innocent," chimed in a woman at the other end of the table (they all declined to give their names). "He was struggling with the cop, and he's got a rap sheet already, so he's not that innocent." (While the first point is in dispute, the second isn't: The police have said that Michael Brown had no criminal record.)

If anything, the people here were disdainful and, mostly, scared—of the protesters, and, implicitly, of black people.

Afraid

We’re afraid that maybe if we write something about the police that law enforcement might single us out at the local level, or persecute us based on our prior coverage. We’re afraid—us journalists, 90 percent white at the supervisory level—might be tailed simply for driving down the street, or, if there’s an emergency at our homes, dispatchers will make no effort to help us beyond a late, procedural check-in.

We’re afraid that we will be treated like black people by police.