On Top of It: News about Ferguson, MO, Meek Mill, and Police Violence
The Struggle Continues...
Activism is alive and well in Ferguson, Missouri!
Context Media founder, Torraine Walker, is showcasing an excerpt from his YouTube documentary, "Five Years Later: Mike Brown and Ferguson Now."
Walker's minimalist style--sans music, sans video footage, sans political or social commentators--presents mostly local black activists speaking bluntly and fervently about their frustrations with Ferguson's long-standing, failed police-community relations, disinterest by elected officials, and the absent national media.
Activists include Tory Russell, Mission Director for the International Black Freedom Alliance (IBFA), quoted in the current issue of Essence magazine, "To put it bluntly, people stopped giving a damn the second the QuikTrip stopped burning, before the ashes could even blow away in the wind."
Note: On The Karen Hunter Show (Urban View, Sirius XM Radio) yesterday, Walker said that he is removing "Five Years Later" from YouTube "soon." Not sure when this will happen, or when and where we can see full documentary.
Meek Mills Finale
After watching Prime Video's heart wrenching docuseries, Free Meek, it's great that Meek Mill's long ordeal with the criminal justice system and Philadelphia Judge Genece E. Brinkley is finally over.
The August issue of DNYUZ, notes, "...as time has worn on, (Brinkley's) decision and the judge herself have become quite controversial."
Although his legal troubles have ended, the documentary reveals how Meek has been emotionally and mentally scarred by the battle.
Mapping Police Violence.org
Earlier this month, I posted, "16 Dead: Who's accountable?" about 15 black men and one woman who died at the hands of or in the custody of police and detailed what consequences, if any, officers faced.
Mapping Police Violence.org looks at the issue on a bigger scale with a map of police-involved shootings across the nation in 2018.
According MPV, "Police killed 1,147 people in 2017. Black people were 25% of those killed despite being only 13% of the population."
Site graphics include a variety of facts:
99% of cases in 2015 have not resulted in in any officer (s) involved being convicted of a crime;
Fewer than 1 in 3 black people killed by police in America in 2014 were suspected of a violent crime and allegedly armed.
(Black people are)7X more likely to be killed by police in Oklahoma than Georgia.
Sad facts about a sad truth.