Ferguson: Some Concrete Actions You Can Take

Things are calming down in Ferguson, but that doesn’t mean we’re done. There’s still a dead teenager, and a culture that finds it all too easy to throw black lives away, and a police department absolutely determined to do nothing, not even fill in a police report on the shooting.

You may feel helpless. You may feel like there’s nothing you can do, but there is. Start small and build, but start. Today.

You can like the Justice for Mike Brown Facebook cause page. You can also like the Justice for Michael Brown community page. Show your support with a couple of clicks.

You can donate to Mike Brown’s family so they have the funds they need to seek justice.

You can send his family a note of condolence.

Tell your Congresscritters to support the Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act.

If you’re white, examine your privilege.

And when the police in your community shoot citizens dead, or beat them to a bloody pulp, or taze them, or detain them on flimsy pretenses, or show a pattern of looking the other way when white people do something but crack down when the suspected offender is black, demand accountability.

Some or all of these things should be things we can do. They won’t always be easy. But they’re necessary things, the least we can do.

When I see my black neighbors out walking with their children, I don’t want to wonder if they’ve already had The Talk, and which of those kids will live to have their own kids, and which of them will be stopped and harassed and assaulted by police just because of their skin. I want to wonder what they’ll be when they grow up, whether I’ll see them on the news for inventing a new widget or curing a disease or breaking a world record. I want to give them a better world than their parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents had. I want them to grow up and grow old in a country where their civil rights are an accomplished fact, not a daily struggle.

Let’s help create that world together. Let’s start now.

Image is a drawing of Mike Brown, with the caption, "I am Mike Brown and my life matters."
Mike Brown. Image courtesy dignidadrebelde via Flickr. (CC BY 2.0)
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Ferguson: Some Concrete Actions You Can Take
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3 thoughts on “Ferguson: Some Concrete Actions You Can Take

  1. rq
    1

    You can keep up with relevant information here, too. There’s information on this shooting, general police abuse of power, the disparity between black people’s and white people’s experiences in America (mostly), and some things on how to talk about racism (esp. to (other) white folk). There’s a lot of comments and a lot of information.

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