Protesters
in Ferguson, Missouri. (The News Commenter)
Fourteen teens have been killed by the police since
Michael Brown was gunned down on August 9th and young African Americans are
killed by cops 4.5 times more often than people of other races and ages. We are obviously watching our police shift their mission from saving lives to
prosecuting drug wars, social injustice and an increasingly visible militarized
police state: Allen L Roland, Ph.D
"As long as justice is postponed we always stand on the
verge of these darker nights of social disruption."
Martin Luther King Jr. in a speech on March 14, 1968, just three weeks before
he was assassinated.
SWAT teams were created in the
1960s to combat hostage-takings, sniper shootings, and violent unrest. But
today they're often used in more controversial police work and with an
increased use of military weapons. As Thom Hartmann correctly states ~ "America's
police forces have become like occupied armies, hyper-militarized for the
benefit of our nation's military industrial complex. All across our country,
local cops are kicking in doors, SWAT teams are carrying weapons of war, and
warrants are becoming things of the past."
Here's an excellent 10 minute documentary
video of this ominous mission creep ~ http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000003097381/swat-mission-creep.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_fs_20140910&nl=video&nlid=65700837
Ferguson
matters because we are finally witnessing the social
injustice of our current War on Drugs and growing militarized police state ~ here
are the facts:
Black people are arrested and incarcerated six times more often than whites.
Black people are arrested and incarcerated six times more often than whites.
- An
African-American male is sentenced to a prison term that is, on average, 20
to 50 times longer than a white male convicted of the same drug crime.
- More
than 2.3 million men in America are in prison, approximately half of
them for drug-related crimes. Seventy percent of all men imprisoned are
black or Hispanic. Thirty years ago, before the "War on
Drugs" was launched, there were only 300,000 people in the American
prison system.
- There
are 2.7 million children whose fathers or mothers are in prison, on
probation, or on parole.
- In
many urban areas 80 percent of young men have prison records. These
convictions will remain on their records permanently, limiting their
voting rights and their ability to find employment. Currently, in all but
two states, citizens with felony convictions are permanently or
temporarily prohibited from voting. The United States is the only
country that permits permanent disenfranchisement of felons even after
completion of their sentences.
- The
United States now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, higher
than Russia, China, and Iran.
- White
households have six times the wealth of African-American households.
Ferguson matters because St. Louis County prosecutors may have misled the grand
jury into believing that Ferguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson was
justified in shooting Brown merely because the unarmed black 18-year-old fled
from the officer, according to a review of the grand jury
documents by
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell; "Before Wilson testified to the grand jury
on September 16, prosecutors gave grand jurors an outdated statute that
said police officers can shoot a suspect that's simply fleeing. This statute
was deemed unconstitutional by
the US Supreme Court in 1985; the court ruled that a fleeing suspect must,
at least in a police officer's reasonable view, pose a dangerous threat to
someone or have committed a violent felony to justify a shooting." See article: http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/27216-report-prosecutors-may-have-misled-the-ferguson-grand-jury-about-the-law-for-two-months
Ferguson matters because many black
leaders like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, are rightfully
troubled because the judicial system is obviously racially flawed ~ "The
people of Ferguson, and across the country, are not protesting against white
people or police officers, they are protesting against the kind of racism that
is so embedded in various social institutions that it’s invisible to all except
those it affects. They are protesting a blind faith in any institution when the
facts don’t warrant that faith." See article: http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/27220-focus-white-people-feel-targeted-by-the-ferguson-protests-welcome-to-our-world
Ferguson finally
matters because
the rules are really different for blacks seeking justice and no one understood
this better than Martin Luther King Jr whose words in his 1968 speech (The
Other America) speaks to all Americans, regardless of their race; "It is not enough for me to stand before you
tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that
without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions
that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause
individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in
violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the
language of the unheard."
We have now reached
the stage in our Republic where the unheard must be heard.
Allen L Roland
Allen
is also a lecturer and writer who shares a weekly political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com. He is also a featured columnist on Veterans
Today and guest
hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net
