Showing posts with label america race relations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label america race relations. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Racial tinderbox examined

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch is publishing a series, “The Story of Ferguson.”

It centers around the killing of an 18-year-old black teen by a white police officer that ignited years of frustration, distrust and anger.

Protests continued for weeks and moved into Clayton, the Shaw neighborhood, St. Louis University, downtown.

A night of arson and looting followed the announcement that a grand jury would not indict the police officer. Protests spread across the nation.


Tuesday, November 25, 2014

White rage at play here?

Whenever events improve the African-Americans’ situation, white rage reacts to dilute the full power of the change.

So writes Carol Anderson in the Washington Post.

The white rage is more discreet and therefore more insidious, Anderson writes. 

Like gerrymandering districts to dilute black voting power, cutting government programs that help black employment or well-being, stricter voter ID laws.

The courts, police, legislatures and governors side with the white rage and attack black rage with rubber bullets and tear gas.

It happened after the Civil War, after Brown v. Board of Education shot down separate but equal schooling and with the ascent of African-American Barack Obama to President.

Republicans and conservatives couch it in language that pretends to espouse other values, but the goal is the same: Take back some of African-Americans’ advancements.

Uneasy with Obama becoming president, Anderson writes, “a rash of voter-suppression legislation, a series of unfathomable Supreme Court decisions, the rise of stand-your-ground laws and continuing police brutality make clear that Obama’s election and reelection have unleashed yet another wave of fear and anger.”

To read the entire article, click on http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ferguson-wasnt-black-rage-against-copsit-was-white-rage-against-progress/2014/08/29/3055e3f4-2d75-11e4-bb9b-997ae96fad33_story.html?tid=sm_fb