Keith Ellison writes: A recent study by the American Civil Liberties Union found that blacks and Native Americans in Minneapolis are nine times more likely to be arrested for low-level offenses than whites. The study was released two weeks after 10-year-old Taye Montegomery was pepper sprayed while peacefully protesting against police brutality in Minneapolis. “At least I got maced and not shot,” Taye said.
Taye’s not being overly dramatic: young black men are 21 times more likely to be shot by police than young white men in US.
The fatal encounter between Officer Wilson and Michael Brown on Canfield Drive in Ferguson, Missouri didn’t take place in a vacuum. Freddie Gray wasn’t the first black man thrown in the back of a van in Sandtown. Eric Garner wasn’t selling loosie cigarettes for fun. Harsh police tactics in black communities and a history of high rates of unemployment and poverty go hand in hand. [Continue reading…]
Congrssman Ellison seems to be saying that going out to vote will make representatives,employers and police more accountable to their constituents. Well we must also consider the honorable court system and the judges who preside over it. We must also consider the fact that politicians don`t really make policy. They only do the dirty work of the super rich who get their attorneys to write laws and them present them to the public as their own legislation putting their names on the new laws. The people with power in America didn`t get it with votes starting with George Washington and the group`who rebelled against England. Voting periodically is not participating in the policital process which takes place everyday all the time. Except at the lcoal level it is meaningless!