"He's evil." - Lesley McSpadden, mother of Michael Brown, speaking to Al Jazeera America about former Ferguson, Missouri, police officer, Darren Wilson When I went to Germany, eight years ago, my friend in Hanover was less than enthused when she found out we had been to visit the museum at the Dachau concentration camp, near… Continue reading The evil that police do – Darren Wilson and the family of Michael Brown
"...the way we do policing needs to change."New York Mayor Bill de Blasio reacting to a grand jury's decision not to indict in the death of Eric Garner. After September 11, 2001, there was no pedestal too high on which to place the brave members of the NYPD, and by association, those who served all… Continue reading The galling and the brave – police unaccountable to justice
The skin remains thin where old wounds receive no healing salve and are not allowed to mend. The scar is prodded by forces seeking control and picked at when it tingles in a sadly familiar way. There is little sympathy for those robbed of justice when their justification for anger crosses over into mob hysteria.… Continue reading Ferguson fallout: justice dancing on the head of a pin
The systemic assault on the body of American society is evident these days in the continuing epidemic of cop-on-black intimidation, threat and murder brought to light most recently with the choke-hold killing of Eric Garner, in New York, and the shooting of young Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Our laws, and those who represent them, are supposed to be the anti-bodies to this type of viral infection. Human decency isn't regulated by law, but by a sense that we actually are all part of the same body. The anti-bodies are obviously corrupted when police officers refer to the protesters as "fucking animals," and a faulty judicial system puts its own money-driven survival ahead of the welfare of the citizens it is meant to protect.
