There is only one race: the human race. The only way to combat racism is to stop talking about it. Race no longer matters. We have heard variations of these phrases time and again, all with the same purpose: to avoid discussing racism. In actuality, racial prejudice is alive and well in America, despite what many claim.
One of the most recent examples of racism occurred in Ferguson, Missouri when white police officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown, an unarmed 18 year old African-American. It was not long before citizens of Ferguson took to the streets in peaceful protest (their motto: “Hands up, don’t shoot”).
Almost instantly, the town’s police force closed in, and it became clear that their motives were not nearly as peaceful. Protestors were shot at with rubber bullets, teargased, and harassed by officers- all in the name of “safety”.
The ongoing events in Ferguson call attention to a myriad of issues: the militarization of law enforcement, police brutality, and racial profiling, to name a few. Regardless of what actually happened when Brown was shot, the situation has been completely mishandled.
Race is a factor in this case. Of the 521 arrests by Ferguson police in 2013, 92.7 percent involved Black people. However, only 21.7 percent of Black people had contraband on their persons (compared to 34 percent for white arrestees). The number of routine vehicle stops/searches in the same year totaled a shocking 4632 for Black citizens, compared to 686 for white citizens. One could claim that this is due to the higher number of African-American youths in Ferguson, considering people ages 18 to 29 are more likely to be pulled over. This is not the case: contrast the 2193 Black young adults pulled over with the 251 whites.
Ferguson’s population is 67 percent Black, but it has a 94 percent white police force. The first protestors were mostly Black people voicing their exhaustion at the relentless barrage of racial profiling and police brutality. When Officer Wilson killed Brown, he was adhering to an inherently prejudiced method of assuming guilt based solely on race.
The criminalization of Black people is no accident. It helps fuel the myth that they are somehow predisposed to violent, lawless behavior- that they are less than human.
An autopsy conducted on Brown’s body showed that the teenager was shot six times. The bullets entered his right arm and the top of his head, possibly indicating that he was in a position of surrender. The shots seem to be fired from far-range (there was no gunpowder found on Brown’s body). If the autopsy proves conclusive, this would disprove the claims of Wilson- namely that he only fired his gun after Brown charged at him.
The posthumous treatment of Brown in the media has been inappropriate and disrespectful. There have been efforts to depict him as a thug- a heavily racialized term in itself- and the New York Times stated that he “was no angel.” This thoughtless treatment simply would not occur if Brown had been white.
Michael Brown was murdered extrajudicially, and did not deserve to die. Brown’s death was not the first, and it will not be the last. It is crucial to remember not only Brown, but Rekia Boyd, Oscar Grant, and Eric Garner (a few of the many lives lost to anti-Black police brutality). We must remain vigilant of the ongoing events in Ferguson. To quote African-American journalist Joshua Alston, to forget would mean that “we live in a world where black people don’t live, we just wait to die.”
