Friday, August 15, 2014

Ferguson is America's wake-up call

Since Michael Brown was gunned down in the street a week ago, America has changed.

Suddenly all America is noticing what brown America has always known; local police have become an army of occupation.

It was an astute move to replace the local cops, but that amounts to nothing more than changing the bandage.

Those of us fortunate enough to view things from a safe distance have often marvelled at how the war on drugs so seamlessly conjoined with the war on terror, and how both continued the war on those who were already dispossessed before either.

I think that's starting to change.

Tonight we have mainstream news outlets talking about the militarization of local policing. That's been a growing problem since the creation of the first SWAT teams.

It's a problem that has grown exponentially in the last few years. Local cops should never be a tool to intimidate the community.

That realization could well lead to other insights.

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