Panel explores response of black communities in wake Michael Brown’s death
Hopelessness.
According to Dr. Stefan Bradley, director of African American Studies at St. Louis University, that’s what people were feeling when the streets of Ferguson, Missouri came alive with protests and unrest on Nov. 24.
“The way this is going to be told, these people will seem crazy, that’s the way the narrative will go,” Bradley said in an CNN interview on Nov. 24. “But these people are worse than crazy. They’re hopeless at this point. This is what it looks like when people get to the point of hopelessness.”
Bradley was one of the panelists at California University of Pennsylvania’s 10th annual hip-hop conference recently, where he and other scholars analyzed the response of black communities following the death of Michael Brown, and the grand jury’s decision not to indict white police officer Darren Wilson.
Wilson shot and killed Brown, an unarmed black teenager, on Aug. 9. After three months of meetings, where grand jurors considered evidence in the case, the St. Louis County prosecutor announced on Nov. 24 that there would be no indictment.
“When you are a young person and you make it to 18 and you see your friend get shot, and you know that there’s nowhere for you to go, that’s just hopelessness,” Bradley said in the CNN interview.
Bradley was in Ferguson with his students the night the rioting broke out.
“What we’re dealing with is a situation where some people have been pushed a little bit too far,” Bradley said during the panel discussion.
He said destruction of property is “not the best idea,” but said he would never say that what young people did that night was completely wrong.
Prior to Nov. 24, Bradley had sent emails to several officials, including Eric Holder and the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.
It was not until the QuikTrip gas station in Ferguson — a gas station where protests had been held in the weeks following Brown’s death — went up in flames, that he heard back from anyone.
“Nobody wanted to talk to me before. Nobody want to talk about this stuff before,” Bradley said. “You can ask nicely, you can send an email, you can make a phone call, but for whatever reason, people don’t quite listen. But when stuff gets on fire, all of a sudden now we want to meet with the people and figure things out.”
Bradley added that “nonviolence” has only been applied to one population of people in history: African Americans.
“We don’t talk about the labor movement in terms of violence and non-violence,” Bradley said. “We only apply non-violence to one particular population. They say we want you to make progress through non-violence.”
The audience also heard from four other panelists, including, the Rev. Earle Fisher, an adjunct instructor of religious studies, and Dr. David Canton, chair of the history department at Connecticut College.
Fisher said that “every option” needs to be on the table, from rioting to activism.
“Part of our issue is that we’re impatient,” Fisher said. “As soon as we send six tweets out, we think there’s going to be change. No, this takes a long time.”
Canton said the real work of the Civil Rights Movement was in constant agitation.
“But that’s sacrifice,” he said. “Call your Congressmen. It does work, but it takes time and sacrifice. Democracy is activism.”
Alicia Sange, a freshman student at Saint Louis University, said young people should not feel like they’re too young to speak out.
“We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for,” Sange said. “A lot of people don’t think there’s power and privilege in being a student. But there is.”