"According to Scheer, who has watched a rough cut of the film, one of the most remarkable elements in 'Ferguson Rises' is the portrayal of white liberals who remained ignorant of the plight of the Black members of their own communities. "
Whiteness is a dangerous concept. It is not about skin color. It is not even about race. It is about the willful blindness used to justify white supremacy.
Whiteness is a dangerous concept. It is not about skin color. It is not even about race. It is about the willful blindness used to justify white supremacy.
Henry Giroux critiques what he believes is a slide toward authoritarianism and other failings that led to the current political climate and rise of Donald Trump.
There has been other evidence that an intense focus on issues like police shootings can spur greater concerns about how this country handles race.
Oftentimes there are historical conjunctures that one cannot necessarily predict, but they’re moments when things come together in such a way that new possibilities arrive. ... I don’t know whether many people are aware of the extent to which Palestinian-American activists were involved, from the very outset, in the protest against the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson.
...that’s unfortunate that they’re really using everything that’s happening across our country to blame Black Lives Matter. And I don’t agree with that at all. It’s really unfortunate that that’s happening and that these trials are being used to attack Black Lives Matter.
From the article: When incidents of police violence come to light, the usual defense is that we should not tarnish all the good cops just because of "a few bad apples." No one can argue with that. But what is usually implied in that phrase is that the "bad" officers' intentions are malevolent—that they are morally corrupt and racist. And that may be true, but they are also bad in the job-performance sense. These men are crummy cops, sometimes profoundly so.
Racism is structural, not just personal. It’s embedded in the very fabric of our society, with deep roots in history. Prejudice is Darren Wilson shooting Mike Brown in Ferguson and leaving him on the sidewalk to die. Racism is that he gets away with it, unindicted. By Starhawk Starhawk.org July 14, 2015 The Inuit, I’ve heard, More
Cohn: The Maryland Medical Examiner concluded Gray’s death was a homicide, “believed to be the result of a fatal injury that occurred when Mr. Gray was unrestrained by a seatbelt in the custody of the Baltimore Police Department wagon.”
Kolhatkar: As a recent Time magazine cover story illustrates, the Black Lives Matter movement has successfully shaped the mainstream narrative of the reality of police violence against African-Americans. But most of the discussion of the fixes that are needed have focused primarily on police accountability such as civilian oversight and requiring officers to wear body cameras. Few analysts have made the crucial link between police brutality and economic injustice. Now, grassroots activists are not only pointing out that black lives matter, but by extension, black jobs matter, too.
Walsh: ...at the moment the MOA 11 stand together as a brave if somewhat reluctant figurehead, a group of thought leaders who see themselves as torch bearers of their lunch-counter-sitting and back-of-the-bus–sitting forefathers and mothers before them, taking on America’s history of institutional racism itself.
