As continuing protests against the killing of an unarmed Black teenager by a police officer on August 9 led to curfew being imposed on the town of Ferguson in the US state of Missouri on Saturday, many Twitter users in the US have expressed disbelief that protests of this scale were unfolding on the streets of their country. “#America is better than this. We're not some 3rd world country,” said one user. Added another, “This is America!!! Act like Americans. @Ferguson!!!!”
The killing of Michael Brown is only the latest in a string of incidents that point to an epidemic of police brutality directed at African-Americans. Brown was the fourth unarmed Black man to be killed by US police in the past month. According to recent findings, one Black man is killed by security forces in the US every 28 hours.
But although many Americans seem to believe that the jarring images coming out of Ferguson are exceptional, protests by African-Americans against police violence have become increasingly frequent in recent years. What is unusual about the Ferguson demonstrations is the ferocity with which the authorities are dealing with them, not the fact that they’re being staged.
Shortly before the events in Ferguson, there were demonstrations in the state of New York, to protest the killing of 43-year-old Eric Garner, a father of six, who suffered from asthma. That incident, in which the unarmed Garner was choked to death by a police officer, was caught on tape. The accused officers have yet to be charged with any offense.
Almost exactly a year before, in July 2013, thousands of people participated in demonstrations in approximately 100 US cities to mark their disappointment at the acquittal of a man in Florida who had shot dead an unarmed 17-year-old named Trayvon Martin. The man, George Zimmerman, said he shot the teenager because he “looked suspicious”.
In 2011, hundreds of protestors marched through San Francisco after the police killed 19-year-old Kenneth Harding
These killings, and countless more, serve as proof for many Black Americans that their country’s history of racialised violence has not ended. But in addition to these extreme cases, African-Americans complain that they are subjected to a litany of everyday abuses. One commonly referred to example is New York City’s “Stop and Frisk” programme, under which police officers are entitled to stop random civilians for questioning, and then frisk them for weapons or contraband.
Though it may appear to be a benign security programme at first, critics have pointed out that racial profiling is a major factor in police determining the suspicion of a subject. In fact, in the over five million stop-and-searches that have occurred since 2002, the overwhelming majority of subjects have been Black or Latino.
Studies show that Blacks are routinely given harsher sentences for non-violent crimes than Whites, and that they are regularly subjected to harsher forms of police response when even under suspicion of a crime (as the events of Ferguson indicate).
Despite the scepticism of some Twitter users, killings of African-American men – and protests against police brutality – have become an all-too-familiar part of American life.
The killing of Michael Brown is only the latest in a string of incidents that point to an epidemic of police brutality directed at African-Americans. Brown was the fourth unarmed Black man to be killed by US police in the past month. According to recent findings, one Black man is killed by security forces in the US every 28 hours.
But although many Americans seem to believe that the jarring images coming out of Ferguson are exceptional, protests by African-Americans against police violence have become increasingly frequent in recent years. What is unusual about the Ferguson demonstrations is the ferocity with which the authorities are dealing with them, not the fact that they’re being staged.
Shortly before the events in Ferguson, there were demonstrations in the state of New York, to protest the killing of 43-year-old Eric Garner, a father of six, who suffered from asthma. That incident, in which the unarmed Garner was choked to death by a police officer, was caught on tape. The accused officers have yet to be charged with any offense.
Almost exactly a year before, in July 2013, thousands of people participated in demonstrations in approximately 100 US cities to mark their disappointment at the acquittal of a man in Florida who had shot dead an unarmed 17-year-old named Trayvon Martin. The man, George Zimmerman, said he shot the teenager because he “looked suspicious”.
In 2011, hundreds of protestors marched through San Francisco after the police killed 19-year-old Kenneth Harding
These killings, and countless more, serve as proof for many Black Americans that their country’s history of racialised violence has not ended. But in addition to these extreme cases, African-Americans complain that they are subjected to a litany of everyday abuses. One commonly referred to example is New York City’s “Stop and Frisk” programme, under which police officers are entitled to stop random civilians for questioning, and then frisk them for weapons or contraband.
Though it may appear to be a benign security programme at first, critics have pointed out that racial profiling is a major factor in police determining the suspicion of a subject. In fact, in the over five million stop-and-searches that have occurred since 2002, the overwhelming majority of subjects have been Black or Latino.
Studies show that Blacks are routinely given harsher sentences for non-violent crimes than Whites, and that they are regularly subjected to harsher forms of police response when even under suspicion of a crime (as the events of Ferguson indicate).
Despite the scepticism of some Twitter users, killings of African-American men – and protests against police brutality – have become an all-too-familiar part of American life.
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