Posted on 11/30/2014 9:21:07 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
All day people gathered, waiting, daring to hope, that maybe this time black lives would matter. Minutes passed. Then hours. And, as darkness descended on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, the now enormous crowd continued to wait patiently -- trying its best to remain optimistic. Perhaps, despite so many decades of history, black people really could find justice in the American legal system.
That such a faith still flickered was, itself, remarkable. Everyone standing outside of the Ferguson police station awaiting news on whether the grand jury would indict police officer Darren Wilson well remembered what happened on February 26, 2012 when Trayvon Martin was killed. Nothing. They also had noticed that, though Martin's killer went free, in the very same state, black mother Marissa Alexander was sentenced to 20 years in prison merely for firing a warning shot at her abusive husband. And, of course, they had just heard, only two days earlier, that yet another black child, this time 12-year-old Tamir Rice, had also been shot to death by the police.
But having faith and clinging to hope is what it means to be human. Even when the past, as well as most recent present, tell people that optimism is wholly unfounded and that they should be realists not romantics, somehow they still believe.
And then they don't....
(Excerpt) Read more at huffingtonpost.com ...
Heather Ann Thompson is a historian writing on the history, politics, and current impact of incarceration in America.
Thompson has just completed the first comprehensive history of the Attica Prison Rebellion of 1971 and its legacy for Pantheon Books. This book is slated for a 2015 release.
Ugly white liberal: it didn’t matter that the crowd was waiting for an innocent man to be condemned. To the ugly white chick, Wilson was already guilty of white privilege.
Someone please have this left-winged dingbat read the court testimony and quit making excuses for a cheap crook and thug.
A bloodthirsty crowd of savages wanting to lynch an innocent man for the high capital crime of defending himself against a gargantuan charging thug.
Doesn’t fit the narrative. She trotted out Saint Skittles of Purple Drank, too. Another big thug caught in the midst of murdering Mr. Zimmerman.
because there’s no better explanation for arson at the toys-r-us than white privilege.
Pukeville.
One of my favorite magazine columnists as a youth was askedby a non-fan: “How can you sit there and write all that crap?” and he replied “On a Royal portable”. Today, Heather Ann Thompson would probably have to reply “On an MacBook Air”....
I truly despise self haters like her.
Fact free blather remains unpersuasive to all but the already indoctrinated.
Red diaper doper baby spewing baffle gab
More proof that any idiot can be a “doctor” these days. What a joke.
White privilege occurs when black people are not allowed to lynch a white person.
Pass me the kleenex
Evil White people like her are doing more to hurt race relations than anyone else - they present a false narrative and the hope for an unreal and false outcome. She creates anger in both sides of the debate!
Was the report written in cursive?
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