Author Bonnie Greer and I joined BBC Radio 2 on Tuesday afternoon to talk about the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, where protests continued against the August 9 killing of unarmed African American teenager Michael Brown by a police officer.
We put the protests and the subsequent response by police and the National Guard both into the historical context of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s and into the current economic and social situation in many US cities and suburbs. The conversation also considered the militarization of American police forces, the dynamic of race in Ferguson, and
The package begins at 1:41.14, with Bonnie Greer’s contribution at 1:44.15 and mine at 1:49.38
Ferguson is one of those episodes which shows that, despite the advances we had in the 1960s with the Civil Rights Movement, there were deeper-set social and economic problems in the US and those just don’t go away….When you have a tragedy — some might say murder — such as that of Michael Brown, then you unleash resentment and anger.
