A Year After Ferguson, Little Has Changed
It has been a year since the tragic events in Ferguson, Missouri galvanized the nation and the world. Any fears that the passage of time would relegate the issues of police abuses inflicted upon people of color and the importance of respecting the intrinsic value of Black lives to the back burner have proved unfounded.
Part of the reason for continued attention is constructive and positive. The growth of #BlackLivesMatter and other grassroots movements as well as the essays of Ta-Nehisi Coates and other commentators have all contributed to keeping these issues in the public eye. But sadly, the issue of the inappropriate use of force by law enforcement against unarmed Black people has been kept current by the relentless repetition of those deaths over the time since the killing of Michael Brown. Sadly, Ferguson no longer refers to a town in Missouri. It has entered the popular lexicon as a synonym for police brutality against Black people.
