Michael Brown Thesis

Race riots are one of the major news items we hear about via the media when a social crisis occurs. The riots in Baltimore, however, were not so much about race, but more about economic and social class separations. The riots began as a peaceful protest amongst the citizens of Baltimore over the death of one of their own, Freddie Gray. Gray was a young, African-American, from a financially lower class area of Baltimore. Unfortunately, he died while in custody of the Baltimore Police. While this is a tragic loss, he was unlawfully detained by the police (Sarlin, 2015) during this ordeal. On the surface, the riots may appear as a cut-and-dry race provoked, once they are looked into further, that is not necessarily the case.

In the weeks that followed the death of Freddie Gray at the hands of the Baltimore police, a group of protestors known as BlackLivesMatter, gathered with the intentions of demanding public awareness over the persistent discrimination and violence that African Americans are subjected to by Police Officers around the Country. Following Mr. Gray’s death, on April 25th of 2015, a small number of protestors attending the B.L.M. protest turned an otherwise non-violent protest into a violent bout of civil disorder which led to several dozen arrests, an estimated 15 officer injuries and mass rioting, looting and burning of the local businesses including a CVS pharmacy. Ultimately, a state of emergency was declared and the National Guard was brought in to resolve the conflicts.

On August 9th 2014, an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown was shot dead by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. A day following Brown’ s death, a riot broke out in Ferguson which caught the attention of the entire country. The fact that black people suffers disproportionally from police violence isn’ t uncommon given that deadly use of force by the police towards blacks under 21 years of age is 20% compared to 8.7% to whites (Johnson et al., 2014). Perhaps what is surprising is the speed of organization and the intensity of young people in Ferguson to use the death of Michael Brown as a final straw in the injustice and racism blacks suffers to this day. For this paper, I shall analyze the Ferguson riot under the #BlackLivesMatter

The shooting in Ferguson sparked a riot around the world. The black people are tired of the police brutality, colorblind mythologies, and the calls for nonviolence, mass incarceration, and trigger happy cops and crying black mothers. Like Malcolm X says “By any means necessary” Black people are demanding to be heard.

Have you heard about any peaceful protests turned violent recently? It’s statistically proven that the amount of riots have increased over the years. We often stop and ask ourselves why this is occurring, however we don’t go into extensive research as to why. We live in an era overwhelmed by violence and rage which is only expanding. Because racial profiling and police brutality has become such a major issue during recent time, the amount of riots have accumulated. Many mass rallies have occurred, per se the Black Lives Matter movement, the Rodney King riots, and the St. Louis protests.

A subject that recently has caught the attention of many around the world is Policing and all that comes with it. There are countless people with opinions for either side of the argument. One case in particular that has drawn a lot of controversy is the case of 18 year old Michael Brown. He was killed August 9, 2014, in Ferguson, Missouri, a northern Suburb of St. Louis. Brown, an 18-year-old black man, was fatally shot by Darren Wilson, 28, a white Ferguson police officer. Before the incident with Darren Wilson Michael Brown was seen with Dorian Johnson at a convenience store taking multiple packages of cigarillos. Wilson had been notified by police dispatch of the robbery and descriptions of the two suspects. He encountered Brown and Johnson as they were walking down

On August 9, 2014, Michael Brown, an 18-year-old man was fatally shot by the police. As a result, the people living in the St. Louis suburb, Ferguson began to protest and riot. However, the incident did not simply start there, there were several accounts of what took place. CNN reported, that “Brown and Dorian Johnson, 22, were walking in the middle of the street, en route to either Brown’s

One of the most known and controversial incidents of alleged police violence occurred on August 9, 2014, when an 18-year old African American male was shot and killed by a white police officer in a St. Louis, MO suburb. Reportedly, Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson stopped Michael Brown, Jr. and a friend for illegally walking in the middle of a street. Eyewitnesses claim that Brown had his hands up, as a way of signaling that he was unarmed and surrendering, when Wilson shot and killed him. Large-scale protests followed Michael Brown’s death, and rioting took place on the streets of Ferguson. Local police were blamed for inciting the riots, and were harshly criticized by activists for violent, excessive force used against demonstrators and journalists.

As of October 14th of 2015 the Ferguson Riot Commission has been released in response to the unrest, disorganization, and violence that arose in Ferguson preceding the death of Michael Brown on August 9, 2014 and the following manifestations of police brutality. This is not the first of riot commissions but there is a deep history of commissions prior. These commissions propose solutions to the issues in the communities but these commissions alone do not provide the full picture. In order to understand what was going on one must examine the voice of those desiring change and see how they were embraced by the commission group. This paper will discuss riot commissions in general, will inspect prior historical riot commissions in comparison to

Today’s world is chockfull of power and violence. New allegations of sexual harassment surface every day in America. Almost every other week, terrorist attacks and mass shootings cause people to fear for their lives. Meanwhile, the President of the United States is threatening to start a nuclear war with North Korea, while millions of refugees in the Middle East are living in deplorable conditions because of the power vacuum that was created after the Iraq War. With irresponsible people in power and leaders and rebels turning to violence, what lies in store for our global society? Violence and power obviously play roles in social change, but how do scholar citizens reconcile this bitter truth? Using Hannah Arendt’s “On Violence,” Odon Von

The racial conflict in Ferguson started with the violent police shooting of an unarmed black male teen named Michael Brown. This then catapulted the racial discrimination situation of the United States into the spotlight. Across the country, white male police officers have become increasingly violent towards the black population, treating them violently and indignantly. Though racial discrimination is not a new issue in the States, this brought back the formerly dormant issue from the 1950s and 60s of white superiority.

The events that happened in Ferguson split the country up racially, specifically when focusing on police. Interviews with African American residents and Nonblack residents showed that the community

Instead of looking at our problems from a different angle and resolving them in a peaceful way, we made fear as our motivator for violence. Take the

In the article “Why The World Is More Peaceful”, the author, Steven Pinker (2012), argues that, over hundreds of years, violence has declined around the world. He claims that government, commerce, and literacy have encouraged people to restrain their violent impulses, empathize with others, and use reason to solve problems. This article was first published in the journal Current History. It is a continuation of an argument Pinker made in his book The Better Angels Of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined (2011). The article is directed toward a general but educated audience. Although Pinker’s article is relevant and logical, many of the author’s arguments are not supported with adequate

“People are still thinking of solving problems by violence and war, and that has to stop.” Said by the famous Yoko Ono About what the world is today. When people think of resolving problems okay they think of killing. People in the world need to think of resolving problems very differently. Violence is a plague when it starts it will keep on going it will not just disappear. People use violence to take over new places which further leads to mixing because the people who aren’t killed and are spared for some reason, most likely so they can exchange there ideas.When cultures collide it will always lead to mixing and massacres of violence.