20 Years Later, Can We Finally End Excessive Policing?

The movement against police violence — a movement perhaps best summed up by the slogan Black Lives Matter — is at a turning point. Of course, police abuse of power is as old as policing itself. Racist and disproportionate police misconduct, and violence targeted at communities of color, is just as lasting. But it seemsContinue reading “20 Years Later, Can We Finally End Excessive Policing?”

Ferguson October Draws a Rainbow of Solidarity

In the Old Courthouse in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, the case of Dred Scott was first heard in 1847. Dred Scott and his family sued for freedom from their slave owner on the grounds that they had been removed from a “slave state” and brought to U.S. territories in which slavery was illegal. The caseContinue reading “Ferguson October Draws a Rainbow of Solidarity”

Justice for Michael Brown! End Racial Profiling and Police Violence

The images of protest and militarized police response in Ferguson, Missouri are shocking. But developments in that small suburban town are simply exposing the racial reality that millions of people of color face every day. Everyday experiences with the courts, media, government authorities and police remind us, in ways large and small, that the livesContinue reading “Justice for Michael Brown! End Racial Profiling and Police Violence”