Ferguson localized: Campus protests, police violence and racial tensions

The decision

Gathered together in The Nest on Nov. 24, students watched the news out of Ferguson, Missouri. The students, members of Black United Students, sat silently.

Huddled around a table, leaned back in the blue and beige chairs of the Student Center, and lounging on the oversized beanbag chairs scattered around the floor, their faces showed anxiety as the anchors spoke about the grand jury’s choice. The decision had been made.

Silence.

Silence and the feeling that there was no air in the room. No angry outbursts. No rioting.

Just a slight, painful-sounding cry from one woman. Then another from across the room.

Marvin Logan, executive director of Kent State’s Undergraduate Student Government, stood and held a classmate to comfort her. His eyes were red, and his cheeks were tear-stained as his arms reached around her.

“Now is not a good time,” he said. “We need time before we talk.”

After a few moments, the students stood. Clasping their hands together, they gathered into a circle that encompassed the entire room, and they began to pray.

They prayed about forgiveness and not seeking vengeance.

“Take hate out of everyone’s hearts,” one said. “Help fix the broken, unjust system. Trust God to watch over everyone in life and in death.”

They prayed about justice, about peace and about remaining calm and trusting God in times of uncertainty and doubt.

The case

When the grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri chose not to indict Darren Wilson on Nov. 24 for the Aug. 9 fatal shooting of Michael Brown, a flurry of mixed reactions followed from individuals and groups both directly and indirectly involved.

Wilson, a white male police officer, shot and killed Brown, an unarmed black teenager, and he will not face any criminal charges or further investigation. To some, this is a gross injustice, both morally and legally, while to others it is simply a process of the legal system of the United States following the book of law.

Conversation in the national media since has followed similar paths of conversation. Was Wilson acting on use of force training or was he acting on racial prejudice? Why did he use his firearm instead of a non-lethal weapon like a taser? Is the U.S. legal system flawed? Demonstrations broke out in streets, on campuses and in shopping malls across the nation to protest the grand jury’s decision. From the riots on the streets of Ferguson to the march members of Kent State’s Black United Students organized last Tuesday, people came together to vocalize their thoughts, their emotions and their opinions on the institutionalized racism that underlies American society, as well as the judicial system of the U.S.

The issue: Race relations and black threat

Marcus Donaldson, chief of staff for USG and a junior public relations major, was in The Nest with BUS the night of the decision.

Donaldson, who was monitoring his personal social media accounts that night, said the focus on Twitter was on the death of Michael Brown. But, it wasn’t necessarily the actual death of the individual; the focus, he said, was on the potential for riots to break out and the police protecting property in response to the decision.

That message — Brown isn’t important but property is — is being touted by law enforcement and the media, which Donaldson said doesn’t help foster healthy communication, but deepens the notion that members of the black community aren’t as important as members of the white community.

Renee Romano, professor of history, African studies and comparative American studies at Oberlin College and author of four books on racial issues in the U.S., said it has become commonplace in American society for the media to criminalize the victim while upholding the innocence of the perpetrator especially when the victim is black.

“On the one hand, I think the demonizing of Michael Brown, as he was big and black and whatever, is very, very common because that is what you see in the case of the victim. Even young black men, teenagers, are turned into some stereotypical threat. And then the rallying around Darren Wilson, well that’s typical to, ‘well he didn’t do anything wrong,’ ‘he thought he was in danger,’ ‘we shouldn’t blame him,’” Romano said. “But that doesn’t get at the real question. How is race structuring the way in which policing is done in this country, and why do black people have such a different perception of police than whites?”

Questions of how communities and police departments interact with each other is key to any conversation about the death of Michael Brown, Romano said. Perceptions are subjective, she said, but hard evidence of how race affects public policies and individual officer decisions is not.

Romano said members of the black community typically view police as threatening to them, not protecting. And police typically view black people as threatening, just by the color of their skin.

“How do these ideas of race, these ideologies of race, affect our police departments more generally?” she asked. “How are police acting in general, what license have we as a society given our law enforcement to use to kill people with very little provocation because they felt some threat?”

The issue: Police violence

Wilson’s position as a police officer has taken a prominent role in the media coverage and subsequent conversation on the decision. Romano said American society has given its police force a huge amount of leeway in how it enforces the law, including permission to use lethal force.

From the police-like shooting situation of Trayvon Martin in Florida to the death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice in Cleveland, the core issue in most police shootings is the perceived threat the victim posed to the perpetrator.

“This perception that black men are a threat and then the sense that we have that, or the ability of the police to essentially justify their action by saying they felt there was a threat,” Romano said. “So it becomes, if the legal issue is this is a white police officer, or any police officer, feel there was a threat, then yes, they are justified to use deadly force. And in our society, race is one of those things that determine how threatening a person is perceived to be.”

Despite the perception that more black men are killed by police officers , statistics from the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s Office of Criminal Justice Services tell a different story. From 2008 to 2012, more people identified as white were killed by police officers during arrests or arrest-like situations than blacks.

 

 

 

The issue: Legal system flaws

Institutionalized injustice in the legal system marginalizes blacks and minorities, an aspect of the way in which the system was originally designed to work, according to the Hampton Institute.

“The law actually worked, I think, as it was meant to here,” Romano said. “It’s just the way the law is set up is really narrow and really problematic. We don’t define what Darren Wilson did as a crime. That’s what that decision told us. This is not defined as a crime.”

Donaldson said the American legal system has never worked in favor of minorities.

“Law hasn’t been something that’s been a defense for our community,” he said. “But I’d like to still be hopeful of legislation.”

Donaldson was referring to laws that would force police to wear body cameras — like the proposed Michael Brown camera law — that could possibly eliminate discrepancies in police and trial investigations.

It is extremely rare for a grand jury to not indict someone. According to The economist, in 2010, the latest statistics on grand jury decisions made, federal grand juries failed to indict just 11 out of 162,000 cases. There are no statistics for state-level decisions of the same nature. In general, however, the legal proof needed for an indictment is not reasonable doubt, but that there was probable cause. This gives the jury a lot of legal authority to bring charges against an individual. The fact that the Ferguson grand jury raises several questions.

In a press release, the National Bar Association questioned the decision and said it would further investigate the evidence and the Ferguson jury’s process. It went so far as to claim that a fair and impartial jury was not provided for the legal case against Wilson.

Race on Campuses

College campuses are not immune to problem of race relations. Though Kent State and Oberlin College do a good job of fostering a racially diverse community, both Donaldson and Romano said they believe racial divides still exist in universities. Conversations are key to understanding race relations, Donaldson said, and for any progress to be made when it comes to addressing racial tensions.

“I think this country has a race problem and colleges and universities are a part of the country,” Romano said. “I don’t think it’s worse than other places, but I don’t think we live in a fantasy world where race doesn’t matter at all, where race is not an issue, or that people are not affected by race.”

She said that access to a college education really does affect the diversity and types of conversations being had on campus. Statistically, she said the number of African-Americans on college campuses is falling, particularly black men.

In November 2014, two members of Kent State’s Undergraduate Student Government were accused of making racially charged comments in the USG offices on campus. Lauren Buchanan and Joshua Lewis, Director of Residence Services and an at-large representative, respectively, were asked by members of Black United Students to resign their positions and for members of USG to participate in anti-racism training.

“We have a race issue, and it starts with USG and people that are a part of their body,” BUS President Matthew Thomas said at USGs November 3 meeting.

Professor George Garrison of Kent State’s Department of Pan-African Studies posted a message on the department’s Facebook page on Nov. 26 on behalf of the entire department’s staff.

“The Faculty and Staff in the Department of Pan-African Studies stand in solidarity with all those parents who have lost children needlessly, and under deeply demoralizing, indescribably painful, and egregiously shameful circumstances,” the message read. “Additionally, we are sensitive to, sympathetic, empathetic, and in total unity with those who raise their voices and engage in legitimate and positive protests (guaranteed by the 1st and 14th Amendments of the US Constitution) against what appears to some as state inflicted violence directed at the innocents within our national family. We call upon the sane, rational, and civilized elements of our government to intervene and halt this systematic and continuous violation of the civil and human rights of our people, and all others, in this nation.”

Peaceful protests with an edge

Students at Kent State chose to protest peacefully the day after the grand jury’s decision. Members of BUS and representatives from other student organizations like USG met in the Hub dining area on campus for a silent memorial to remember Brown. Leaving as a collective, the group marched down the Esplanade to the front campus where they painted the rock in complete black. Continuing to the Kent Police Department, the protesters gathered for a prayer and to sing song.

There was no rioting, no violence.

Unlike some in Ferguson who chose to set fire to buildings and loot stores, most demonstrations across the nation were peaceful. Romano said both kinds of protests — the violent and the peaceful — can be progressive and productive. But violent protests, which tend to show how frustrated and angry some people can get, often send the wrong message, she said.

“I tend to think that, as somebody who’s studied civil rights, that kind of rioting is not terribly productive in the sense that, in American history, change has most often come when those that are protesting can show themselves as having the moral upper-hand, as they are…the ones acting in the way of having morals,” Romano said. “That’s how Martin Luther King positioned himself. We are the ones upholding ideals, we are the ones acting in morals. And the ones who are beating us, the white police officers who are beating us, opening fire hoses on them, we want to make them look bad. Those upholding the social order look bad.”

CNN reported that protests had taken place in more than 170 cities across the country, ranging from blocking traffic on major highways in Los Angeles, smashing windows and looting stores in Oakland, California, to peaceful gatherings in town squares as in Times Square and the Boston area. Sit-ins and lay-downs took place in Washington D.C., and Chicago, and some protesters were either either detained or arrested for grabbing police officers. In several locations, individuals held signs similar to those like “Black Lives Matter” and “Stop Killer Cops.”

“I think in the long run, (those kinds) of protest that is a peaceful protest but peaceful with a point, peaceful with an edge, tend to be the kind that move society in some direction,” Romano said.

What’s next?

“I think some kind of political or social movement to challenge the underlying issues that structure our society is probably the fundamental next step,” Romano said.

Potential solutions to the problem of race relations exist, she said, and starting with addressing the practices of police departments, from crisis response to use of force trainings, is the practical first step.

Romano said that looking at a different model of policing, like getting officers more involved in the communities they work in, is important. Knowing what the issues are on the street level typically helps when it comes to addressing the deeper issues in society.

Other options include individual body cameras, as well as 1960s style community review boards that have authority over the police departments. Looking at media images of stereotypes and implicit biases is also important for constructive conversation, both Donaldson and Romano said, as well as looking at the deeper issues instead of focusing on the riots.

“The core issue to me is that we live in a society that has criminalized black men, that doesn’t value black life equally to lives of others and where whites seem to have a failure of imagination or empathy to put themselves in the shoes of people like Michael Brown’s mother or Michael Brown himself, or folks who have to live in a society where they become targets…because of the color of their skin,” Romano said. “I think that’s the core issue, that black life is not equally valued and that black men particularly have been targeted and criminalized as threatening.”