- One year out from Ferguson, and with a lot of work still left to do, Mic.com assembles a Ferguson syllabus: readings on violence, its aftermath, and what it means for America.
- Why do #BlackLivesMatter activists keep interrupting Bernie Sanders?
- Eileen G’Sell on the paradox of the “hot mess” humblebrag—or why women feel the need to downplay their discipline and success.
- “Hell is empty and all the devils are here”: A Shakespearean guide to the 2016 Republican Primary.
- “Female Friends Spend Raucous Night Validating the Living Shit Out of Each Other“
- Storytelling shapes our perception of the world, and it’s clear that We Need Diverse Books!
Tag: Ferguson
Freddie Gray and Baltimore
There is A LOT of information out there circulating around the protests happening in
Baltimore, the death of Freddie Gray, and the state of police power as a systematic tool of oppression. We won’t try to provide any kind of summary—a quick perusal of #baltimoreriots will give you that.
We will, however, draw your attention to both the riots and their “bigger picture.” Violent looting and rioting is difficult to outright condone, but it is understandable once you begin to think of the context in which such actions occur. Baltimore is not an isolated incident (neither was Ferguson), but a culmination of a long, violent system of exploitation and abuse rooted in racial oppression.
This article from The New Inquiry puts it better than I could, and I urge you to read it and consider the rhetoric that drives media accounts of “looting,” as well as the perverted logic that presents violence done to property as far more worthy of our outrage than violence done to human beings.
As the Vox article below states, the situation in Baltimore also highlights the way race and class intersect to create systems of oppression—because the police force in Baltimore is racially mixed, this is not just something that can be “boiled down” to black citizens versus a white police force, though that is certainly still operative. It is rather a reminder that violence against black communities is perpetuated not only through physical violence, but economic isolation as well.
Further reading:
The Guardian on (racialized) economic violence: “We cannot breathe if we can’t eat”
The Baltimore Sun documents the striking history of police brutality and undue violence in the city.
Mic.com highlights the media’s double standard in presenting “black looters”
Vox looks into a history of police distrust and brutality
Ta-Nehisi Coates addresses the issue of nonviolence
First published April 28, 2015.
Updated: April 30, 2015. May 2, 2015.
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