Nov 20, 2014
The imminent decision by a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri about
whether to (not) indict Darren Wilson for his choice to kill an
unarmed teenager named Michael Brown looms over Ferguson,
Missouri.
The grand jury will likely let Wilson go free without consequence
for his wicked deeds. The tension in Ferguson--and around the
United States--about the grand jury's decision is not an anxiety
about the just Sword of Damocles. Rather, among the good, honest,
ethical, and moral, the worry is that justice, of course, will not
been done because black life is cheap and a white man wearing
police blue has a de facto license to kill black and brown people
with impunity.
In the first part of our conversation here on
The Chauncey DeVega Show about the recent events in Ferguson,
Missouri--and how that community is responding to the killing of
Michael Brown by the thug police officer Darren Wilson--I was
lucky to have the opportunity to talk with Mr. Lou
Dubose, editor and reporter from The Washington
Spectator.
For part two of The Chauncey DeVega Show's series on Ferguson, I
talked with Reverend Renita Lamkin. She is a resident of Ferguson,
a social justice activist, on the ground participant in the
people's movement for civil rights and respect against the
militarized and racist Ferguson police and local government, as
well as a Pastor in the African Methodist Episcopal
Church.
Reverend Lamkin has been the subject of much conversation about the
events in Ferguson both because of her participation in the
people's movement (and subsequent injuries suffered at the
hands--and at the end of the gun barrels--of the police) and bold
truth-telling in her writings at the Huffington
Post, a new piece at CNN,
and interviews with a range of domestic and international media
outlets.
Renita and I talk about how the mainstream media is distorting and
misrepresenting the events in Ferguson, how white privilege is
operative even among those white brothers and sisters who have
chosen to stand with the black community in Ferguson, how faith and
"liberation theology" guides her social justice work, predictions
for Ferguson when/if Wilson does not face negative consequences for
his actions, and what events and experiences made it possible for
Renita Lamkin to pastor a majority black church.