mike brown
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When It Comes to Blackness, All Roads Lead to and Through East St. Louis. Period.
Firstly, I want to make this clear: People often (always) confuse East St. Louis and St. Louis—they are not the same city. Kind of like assuming all black people look alike or just because our names are close than we must be sisters—nah. East St. Louis is literally “east” of St. Louis and is housed…
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Wesley Bell Wastes No Time Making Changes in St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office
Newly elected St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell wasted no time cleaning up shop and making changes after being sworn in on Jan. 1. On his second day in office Wednesday, he fired the assistant prosecutor who failed to get an indictment against former Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson in the 2014 shooting death…
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Ferguson Uprising: Prosecutor Who Didn't Bring Charges in Michael Brown Shooting Loses Primary to Black Councilman
The ashes of the Ferguson, Mo., uprising have given way to the ouster of a longstanding St. Louis County prosecuting attorney who not only led the investigation into the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown by white police officer Darren Wilson, but took a moment to chastise the public who demanded that Wilson be…
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The Edge of 17: For Ahkeem Is a Coming-of-Age Story in the Age of Ferguson
Fun fact: I was expelled from preschool at age 4 during a brief stint when my mother and I had moved to Dallas. From the little I recall, I was one of very few black students at my private day school. My expulsion came after I defended myself against another little girl—not black—who’d been harassing…
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Judge of Characters: An Ode to Black Twitter
Black Twitter is an almighty force that’s not only been able to make the best memes the internet has ever seen but has also managed to get movies made and racists fired, as well as expose the horrific trend of police brutality across the country. It’s so big, it can’t be contained. And for that,…
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Erica Garner’s Funeral Was Marred by a Family Dispute, but Her Unapologetic Warrior Spirit Could Not Be Diminished
Erica Garner’s short life was marked by her unbridled, studied passion for justice. And that passion, that pain, spilled over into her funeral service Monday evening. Her father was Eric Garner, whose last moments were captured on video as he sputtered, “I can’t breathe” 11 times on July 27, 2014. For Eric Garner, there was…
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Walking While Black: Community Calls for Jacksonville, Fla., Sheriff to Suspend Racially Biased Pedestrian Ticketing
There’s driving while black, shopping while black and flying while black. But WTF is walking while black? It’s apparently a thing in Jacksonville, Fla., where the local NAACP and several government officials have called for the Sheriff’s Office to suspend all pedestrian ticket writing because of racial bias. Civil rights leaders, including the representatives of…
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Why Has the Justice Department Redacted a Great Majority of Its Documents Related to Ferguson, Mo.?
There are 400 pages of documents that have been identified by the U.S. Department of Justice as being related to an investigation conducted by its Office of Community Oriented Policing Services after the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown by then-Ferguson, Mo., Police Officer Darren Wilson, and a great majority of the pages were either totally…
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Whose Streets? A Ferguson, Mo., Documentary That Is Right on Time for Charlottesville, Va.
As the idiot known as the president continues to defend the tiki-torched, “alt-right,” neo-Nazi, white supremacist orgy that went down in Charlottesville, Va., resulting in one person’s death and several injuries, social media’s blood pressure has gone way up, with millions posting outrage. Outrage doesn’t always translate into a movement, but it can, and that’s…