The grand jury in St. Louis County refused to return an indictment on police officer Darren Wilson, who killed the African-American young man Michael Brown.
The original offense by young Brown was walking in the middle of the street. Ultimately he was killed, shot at least six times, as the incident escalated.
No one should be killed for walking in the street.
My friend, Joann Wypijewski, edited a great book called Killing Trayvons: An Anthology of American Violence about the killing of young African-Americans.
The issue will move from the killing of a young man to the response of anger from people who are sick of the continuation of the lack of respect for Black lives. That will be tragedy on top of tragedy.
On a very personal note, Ferguson, Mo. was my first organizing campaign with ACORN in 1977. It is extremely painful today for me and has been for a while.
I will of course get many criticisms for this blog, but we are a country torn apart by poverty and joblessness. We are on a tragic downward spiral in living standards, great income and wealth inequality, and a continued racism stoked by a radical right-wing.
Unless there is a serious movement for real social and economic justice, the uber rich will laugh as working class cops fight with angry, hopeless people in the streets of America.
Photo source: Twitter