After Ferguson
After Ferguson Posted: Thursday, November 27, 2014 9:34 am Comment Email Print
Repetitive Motion Disorder:Black Reality and White Denial in America - Tim Wise writes in Tikkun - the US-based interfaith Network of Spiritual Progressives: I suppose there is no longer much point in debating the facts surrounding the shooting of Michael Brown.
First, because Officer Darren Wilson has been cleared by a grand jury, and even the collective brilliance of a thousand bloggers pointing out the glaring inconsistencies in his version of events that August day wont result in a different outcome.
And second, because Wilsons guilt or innocence was always somewhat secondary to the larger issue: namely, the issue of this gigantic national inkblot staring us in the face, and what we see when we look at itand more to the point, why? Because it is a kind of racial Rorschach (is it not?) into which each of these casesnot just Brown but all the others, from Trayvon Martin to Sean Bell to Patrick Dorismond to Aswan Watson and beyondinevitably and without fail morph. That we see such different things when we look upon them must mean something. That so much of white America cannot see the shapes made out so clearly by most of black America cannot be a mere coincidence, nor is it likely an inherent defect in our vision. Rather, it is a socially-constructed astigmatism that blinds so many to the way in which black folks often experience law enforcement.
Read on: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/after-ferguson
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After Ferguson