We Can Still Get Justice for Mike Brown

By Jesse Jackson, Guardian UK

26 November 14

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The issue now is not Ferguson�s unfortunately violent protests. The issue is the root of the anger behind them

t has been fairly obvious since this summer that the predominate belief in Ferguson and St Louis was that Darren Wilson, the killer of Michael Brown, was not going to be indicted by his Missouri grand jury. In a rambling statement of the grand jury�s process and conclusion � which did little to inform, and lots to enrage � prosecutor Bob McCullough acted in the capacity of an attorney who abused the grand jury process as �a trial� without professional legal cross-examination.

It has been fairly obvious for quite some time now that political and legal authorities in the area had not been preparing for a trial at all. They had been preparing for civil unrest. And just as the legal authorities and police initially �mis�-reacted to the shooting, their �over�-reaction to the community�s initial protest of the killing of Michael Brown contributed to the original civil unrest in the face of mostly peaceful demonstrations.

Now the jury is in: police can continue to shoot unarmed black youth without being prosecuted, and Darren Wilson says he has a �clear conscience�. It is a national tragedy � a moral disgrace � but this is not the end.

I had urged and hoped that the reaction to the grand jury�s decision would be peaceful, but the political and legal authorities have mostly said and done all the wrong things � and the protesters are not crazy.

The community is reflecting hopelessness, but there remains hope in the quest to achieve justice for Michael Brown.

Whatever comes next for Ferguson and beyond is about the killing of Michael Brown. But it�s not just about the killing of Michael Brown. It�s about a failed urban policy: guns in, drugs in, jobs and services out � all contained with military occupation, not unlike South African apartheid. This federal �ghetto� policy is true whether you�re in Ferguson or St Louis, Los Angeles or Seattle, Atlanta or Birmingham or Milwaukee or urban centers around the nation, and even the world.

The issue now � the issue next � is not the unfortunate and unwise violent protests that have followed the grand-jury decision. The issue is the lack of federal uplift for the community. The issue is the lack of federal enforcement of civil rights laws. The issue is that police and fire departments in places like Ferguson do not represent the people � that they are still predominantly white, while operating in primarily black communities. Yet these non-integrated police departments continue to receive federal funds.

The contracts issued to Ferguson�s police department and fire department are subsidized by the federal government � including the military equipment that was used to put down the protests. This federal ghetto policy of reckless and unaccountable police behavior and military occupation must end. It�s a policy of community containment, when it should be a new standard of community development, to reconstruct inner cities, struggling suburbs and poor rural towns.

Ferguson does not need to mobilize federal involvement for military occupation and martial law; it should mobilize for jobs and economic development � it should mobilize for healthcare and community services. Ferguson and communities like it should mobilize to end racial discrimination in the police departments, the fire departments and wherever else it exists, anywhere.

Police shootings of young black men are reaching crisis proportions. Just this week, police shot 12-year-old Tamir Rice for carrying a toy gun in Cleveland. Since George Zimmerman was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in July 2103, too many young unarmed black youth have been killed by police and security forces in the United States.

Black youth are 21 times more likely to be shot dead in America than their white counterparts, according to an analysis ProPublica. Black people are arrested 10 times more often than white people in this country, USA Today reported last week, but black people don�t commit 10 times more crimes. In turn, expanding the jail industrial complex � new for-profit jails, new courthouses, new police stations, increased police presence and new military gear � has become the focus of �development� in urban communities. The focus should be new jobs and job training, new schools and more teachers, business development that would lead to permanent economic stability for our communities.

The shooting down of unarmed young black men by the police across the nation must stop � and we must continue to seek justice for Michael Brown through whatever avenues still remain open to us, including a federal indictment. Instead of a public trial for Darren Wilson, with the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, the legal authorities in Ferguson and St Louis put Michael Brown�s character on trial in the public, and left it to a prosecutor-led secret grand jury to decide.

For a jury to look all of these issues that matter and to justify another killing is a bitter pill. Things may feel hopeless. But while compounded injustice may lead to anarchy, justice leads to peace. The people�s protest in Ferguson � and in cities across America � shows that the struggle for justice continues.