The Ferguson Report. Part 1: Breathing While Black, and Other Offenses
It has been said that African-Americans are often arrested for
“driving while black.” In fact, African-Americans seem to be arrested
for walking, talking—or just
breathing—while black.
This
is not news. What is news is that the Department of Justice investigated
the city, the police department, and the judicial system of Ferguson,
Missouri—which is apparently just one of many places in America where
such racially driven abuses occur on a regular basis.
Out of this came
The Ferguson Report.
Here
we present anecdotes from that report, a catalog of grinding daily
harassments, humiliations—and worse—by a police department intent on
keeping a people “in their place” while earning revenue for the city by
writing as many tickets as possible.
Theodore M. Shaw—Julius L.
Chambers Distinguished Professor of Law and Director of the Center for
Civil Rights at the University of North Carolina—wrote an eloquent
introduction to the Report. In it, he said the DOJ pursued the
investigation
in order to understand
the context in which the events following the shooting of Michael Brown
took place. Even if Darren Wilson [the officer who shot him] was not
criminally indicted, in a broader sense the City of Ferguson, Missouri,
stood indicted for its unconstitutional and racially discriminatory
actions, deeds, and omissions in its daily treatment of its
African-American citizens.
Below are selections from the Report. They have been edited and compressed to fit space requirements.
—
WhoWhatWhy Introduction by Milicent Cranor
EXCERPTS FROM THE FERGUSON REPORT
Attitudes in Writing