By Marty Noel
If someone from another country, or perhaps another planet, saw the televised images coming out of Ferguson, Missouri, this past month, they might think that they were watching war footage of Afghanistan, or perhaps Syria. Any place other than America, where of course we are reminded that such governmental domestic militarism cannot and does not exist. Yet, the “police riot” that the whole world has seen evolving on the streets of Ferguson is real! The senseless death of another young African American male, a young man who had no criminal record and was unarmed, was shot dead in the street and left to die like a dog, by another white male cop cannot be justified, no matter how the media chooses to cover it. While combat clad “riot cops” attempted to cover up their own crimes against humanity, by forcing down a news camera, while brutalizing onsite journalists whose only crime was to dutifully report the violation of and suspension of the rights of peaceful protesters. All taken together as one, this shows the perpetuation of a “police state” in America that has taken the madness of our ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan and has brought them home to us, especially against African Americans and the poor who are brutalized in this “police state” the most. Whether the rest of us want to admit it to ourselves or not, the fullest ramifications of this now exposed state are still to be felt. However, beyond all of the socio, political after shocks and possible future shocks, of the events that transpired on a street in a place called Ferguson, Missouri, somewhere in the so-called “heartland of America” is this: a young man unarmed and innocent was murdered in cold blood by a police officer, and the rights of peaceful protesters and observers were violated under the cover of darkness for all of America and the world to witness.
What more can possibly be said?
What are we going to do about it?
