#stlverdict

[urflirtytoday2012]

Please send good vibes to my city and hope for some peace and justice

[spanky606]

@Regrannfrom @glitter_luna The police are out of control 😱😱😱via: @the4th_duck "So the other day as we were dispersing a cop drove backwards into a crowd of people. You hear the gentleman saying "everybody was trying to leave". The cop then reverses into the crowd. So, when we tell you all the police are antagonizing the crowd. We are telling the truth. #STLVerdict #StlCallToAction #AnthonyLamarSmith #JasonStockley

[4playchef]

@Regrann from @crackedrosecoloredglasses_us - @abcnews @nbcnews @nbc @abcnewsradio @cnn @cnnireport @msnbc24hour @lastwordmsnbc @msnbc24hour @allinwithchris @foxnews #Repost @therealremyredd ・・・ @the4th_duck ・・・ So the other day as we were dispersing a cop drove backwards into a crowd of people. You hear the gentleman saying "everybody was trying to leave". The cop then reverses into the crowd. So, when we tell you all the police are antagonizing the crowd. We are telling the truth. #STLVerdict #StlCallToAction #AnthonyLamarSmith #JasonStockley #charlottesville #therealremyredd #Blackmedia --------------------------------------------- We Support @kaepernick7 #imwithkaepernick #colinkaepernick and will continue to #BoycottTheNFL for the #footballseason because #BlackLivesMatter and #policeareoutofcontrol #NFL #therealremyredd #Blackmedia I care more about black lives then Football - #regrann #StayWoke #Amerikkka #bluekluxklan #bluelivesmurder #whiteprivilege #doublestandards

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Bridging black and white: How St. Louis residents are trying to surmount racial inequities post-Ferguson

A broad movement has sprung out of Ferguson, in which white people are increasingly joining a spirited crusade by black people to foster racial equity in St. Louis. They see the Midwestern city as a modern Selma, Ala., fueling a new civil rights movement.

Christa Case Bryant at The Christian Science Monitor:

ST. LOUIS AND WEBSTER GROVES, MO.—Elyssa Sullivan never expected to get thrown in jail. The white suburban mother lives in a tony enclave on the outskirts of St. Louis with street names like Joy and Glen, a world apart from the turmoil that erupted 16 miles away in Ferguson, Mo., in 2014.

She had no inclination to join the protests sparked by a white policeman’s fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a black 18-year-old, that overnight triggered a fraught – and painfully familiar – national debate on race relations in the United States.

“I was really scared,” says Ms. Sullivan. “I kind of bought that narrative, ‘Oh, that city is on fire; look at those protesters. I care about what they’re saying, but that’s not my place.’ ”

She never thought that three years later she would count a former battle rapper among her personal role models, or that she would scrawl “White Moms for Black Lives” on poster board and march down a highway. She couldn’t imagine that a police officer would yell obscenities at her – and another would zip-tie her wrists together.

But there came a point when Sullivan concluded that it was more dangerous for her to sit at home, ignoring what she now sees as an unequal justice system for black and white people, than to drive her minivan downtown and stand face to face with police in riot gear. Even if it meant spending a night in jail, as she ended up doing, unable to get an answer about the charge against her and denied a phone call to her husband and two kids.

“It just made me hyperaware of how no one is listening when people of color in our community have shared their stories of how they’ve been brutalized by police and damaged by police,” she says.

Sullivan is part of a broad movement that has sprung out of Ferguson, in which white people are increasingly joining a spirited crusade by black people to foster racial equity in St. Louis. They see the Midwestern city as a modern Selma, Ala., fueling a new civil rights movement. From schools to homes, from courts to churches, they are combating the city’s long history of segregation and racism – and building on the often-forgotten pioneers of civil rights in Missouri.

While St. Louis still lags behind many other cities in instituting police and criminal justice reforms, Ferguson has acted as a catalyst for change, from more grass-roots political engagement to the departure of a much-criticized police chief. Perhaps more important, it has led to a more frank dialogue between black and white people that could provide a path forward for a country cleaved by racial division.

“If we can be as successful in St. Louis as Dr. King and the civil rights leaders were in Selma, it could change this country as Selma did,” says the Rev. Darryl Gray, who participated in the original civil rights movement and has been a major force behind the drive here.

In the immediate aftermath of the Ferguson shooting, activists sensed the mood was right here and across the country for a major new push forward on social reforms.

But the election of Donald Trump and the emboldening of the white supremacist movement, combined with few convictions in police shooting cases around the country, dashed many of their hopes. Then, a few months ago, a St. Louis judge acquitted Jason Stockley, a white ex-police officer, in the shooting death of African-American Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011.

Mr. Stockley had pursued Mr. Smith, who was on parole for possession of marijuana and an illegal firearm, after witnessing a suspected drug deal. When the car chase ended in a crash, Stockley approached Smith’s vehicle and shot him, later testifying that he saw a gun in the suspect’s hands.

Heroin and a gun were found in the car, and an FBI investigation ended without prosecution of Stockley, a West Point graduate and Iraq War veteran. But after the officer had left the force in 2013, and the department had paid a $900,000 settlement to the Smith family, fresh evidence surfaced showing that the gun in Smith’s car bore only Stockley’s DNA. The prosecution argued it had been planted by the officer.

Stockley’s acquittal in the face of the new information stunned many who had worked for systemic change post-Ferguson, and it ignited a fresh round of protests.

Yet this time something was different. More than half the faces were white. That was intentional, taking a page out of the Selma playbook, says Mr. Gray.

In 1965, after state troopers brutally thwarted a march from Selma to Montgomery, Martin Luther King Jr. put out a call for whites to join them. Marching as a united front against voter discrimination, they reached Montgomery and helped persuade President Lyndon Johnson to enact the Voting Rights Act.

Adopting that strategy in St. Louis, black and white people have been protesting together amid trendy cafes and fancy suburban malls, challenging the idea that racial inequity is only a worry in neighborhoods with broken windows and empty streets.

Not everyone is happy with the new activism.

Some conservative whites believe it is misguided. They see rallying around black victims with suspected or demonstrated criminal backgrounds, questioning court verdicts, paying large settlements to families of police-shooting victims despite investigations clearing the officers, and forcing police officers to move away from the city as undermining law and order.

Yet the new social movement extends far beyond street protests. It involves a broad range of initiatives – many of them involving people of all colors working together – springing up everywhere from preschools to Pottery Barn- furnished living rooms.

[...]

In November 2016, Kim Gardner became the first African-American to be elected circuit attorney, the office that prosecutes state-level criminal cases in St. Louis, on the promise of trying to restore trust in the criminal justice system.

One of her top concerns is how to investigate police shootings. Currently, a Force Investigation Unit within the police department takes the lead on such inquiries. But after Stockley’s acquittal, Ms. Gardner asked the city’s Board of Aldermen for $1.3 million to create a unit that would become the lead investigative body. She argued that her office had not been able to access key interviews and obtain relevant documents – a charge the FIU disputed.

“At what time do we think that a body who is investigating one of [its] own is appropriate?” asks Gardner. “It deteriorates the public trust.”

Other changes have come from the courts. In November, a federal judge ordered the city to refrain from using chemical agents such as pepper spray and other tactics against people engaged in “expressive, nonviolent activity.”

Yet the police have their supporters, too. Just days before the judge’s ruling, the city voted overwhelmingly to pass Proposition P, which gave the police department more funding – a move Clark, of the main police union, says reflects confidence in the men and women in blue.

Ultimately, some residents believe the best way to improve race relations in the city isn’t through street protests but the ballot box. Dellena Jones, a hair salon owner in Ferguson who is still paying off loans for damage caused by the riots, holds classes on how to fight discrimination through government channels. “There’s other ways of doing things, like voting,” says Ms. Jones. “You can’t say the system is flawed if you don’t work the system.”

A few activists are going even further: They’re running for office themselves. One, former battle rapper Bruce Franks Jr., is now a state legislator. Cori Bush, a nurse and pastor who took her ministry to the streets of Ferguson, is vying for a seat in Congress in 2018. Ms. Bush decided to run after watching elected officials remain silent or visit the protests just for a photo op.

“There have to be people in positions of power that actually love the people, that have a heart for the people, and that the people actually love and respect as well,” she says.

But social change doesn’t come through legislative action alone. Some of it comes through private conversations and shifts in attitudes. Sullivan, the suburban mother, is using the post-Ferguson ferment as a teaching moment for her children. She’s also been talking with friends about what she’s learning – though it hasn’t always been well received.

Read the full story in The Christian Science Monitor. 

[nojusticenoprofitofficial]

#noJUSTICEnoPROFIT @Regrann from @ohun.ashe - Had the opportunity to speak on a panel at @fontbonneu on "The Art of Protest and Peace". EXCELLENT experience. PHENOMENAL dialogue. Shared the stage with business owners in the Delmar Loop and artists. We will win. #ExpectUs #STlVerdict #NoJusticeNoProfit Footage by: @queenmanyara - #regrann

[think7stars]

someone didn’t like us protesting at the AFL-CIO pre-conference, or in general for that matter. #PatWhite President of the St. Louis Labor Council. That letter about the #STLverdict he wrote shows in his character. This is not unifying the movement, but a cancer to it.

[think7stars]

they took the chains off the door! this is what you call solidarity! #STLVerdict #AFLCIO “All of us or None of us” pre-conference

[dmnsqrl]

#Repost @antifascistmemes (@get_repost) ・・・ 24th straight day of #stlprotest #stlverdict #takeaknee #blm All some white people do is complain from behind their computer screens. Sorry but your opinion does not matter in the struggles of black and poc lives.