<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot to discuss when it comes the ongoing \u2018events\u2019 taking place in Ferguson, Missouri. I put scare quotes around \u2018events\u2019 because part of what\u2019s at stake as Ferguson continues developing into a national news story and culturally significant moment is how we define the circumstances surrounding it.<\/p>\n

Is Ferguson home to ‘social unrest’ or more accurately ‘under siege?’ In the wake of looting over the weekend, some are quick to construe community-wide \u2018protests\u2019 as \u2018riots\u2019 based only on the actions of a few. Police on the other hand are thought\u00a0to be\u00a0acting with \u2018restraint\u2019 and \u2018non-violently\u2019 as long as they merely shoot tear gas to disperse crowds rather than firing rounds of \u2018non-lethal\u2019 ammunitions for the purposes of \u2018crowd control.\u2019<\/p>\n

I wanted to post something on the subject, anything really, because Ordinary Times has already gone too long without at the very least drawing attention to\u00a0the miniature police state that has formed in Ferguson. Whether it\u2019s the decades long militarization of local law enforcement<\/a>, persistent social and economic disparities between white and black communities<\/a>, or the unique pathologies<\/a>\u00a0of fear that perhaps animate so many of the United States\u2019 fundamental contradictions when it comes to the rights and liberties we are afforded as its citizens versus how those rights and liberties are protected and safeguarded<\/a>, and for whom, there\u2019s plenty to talk about.<\/p>\n

Race, though,\u00a0is the essential issue cascading through\u00a0out all of the\u00a0others, and yet it’s surely the one which is hardest to address\u00a0and build consensus around.\u00a0This is partially\u00a0why, I think,\u00a0the story has moved so quickly beyond the shooting of one black kid by a white police officer to the Storm Trooper-esc\u00a0image police ‘forces’ across the country have been cultivating with help from the funds made available by the ‘War on Terror, Inc.<\/a>‘\u00a0The militarization of police is something\u00a0that, even though it disproportionately impacts people of color, white people can also self-interestedly rally against. For those white people who are\u00a0more afraid of the black people protesting in Ferguson than the martial law they’ve been subjected to, a debate over the proper role and equipping of law enforcement isn’t likely to go very far, but for everyone else it’s a tangible starting place for something productive to happen.<\/p>\n

As someone who could be characterized as ‘radical’ on many of these questions (yes to reparations, yes to a guaranteed income, yes to robust affirmative action programs, etc.), I’m not really interested with trying to breakthrough to this kind of person<\/a>. For everyone else who is even marginally conflicted about what’s going on in Ferguson though, a greater understanding, sensitivity, and empathy when it comes to race can come later. Sometimes it’s crucially important to recognize how we and our institutions treat people differently\u00a0based on\u00a0race, sex, class, etc. Other times it’s imperative to\u00a0focus on\u00a0how superficial these differences should<\/em> be in practice because we are all human beings equally deserving of respect, compassion, and justice.<\/p>\n

Casting Ferguson in the light of a ‘race relations’ problem,\u00a0which doesn’t even come close to capturing what’s going on there, overlooks a simpler starting place: U.S. citizens in Ferguson, Missouri are having their rights abused, or ignored altogether, which for one citizen in particular, Michael Brown,\u00a0cost him his life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Contributor Ethan Gach struggles to find a single starting point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":302183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_wpscppro_custom_social_share_image":0,"_facebook_share_type":"","_twitter_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type":"","_pinterest_share_type":"","_linkedin_share_type_page":"","_instagram_share_type":"","_medium_share_type":"","_threads_share_type":"","_selected_social_profile":[]},"categories":[13],"tags":[9751,1605,1297],"class_list":["post-75247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-league","tag-ferguson","tag-law-enforcement","tag-race"],"yoast_head":"\n