The tragic shooting of a black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has sparked an intense debate about the state of race relations in America, but there’s little indication much will change. Predictably, Barack Obama, the first black president, is at the center of the debate. CONT. […] Read more »
The Fire This Time
The 1992 Los Angeles riots that followed the not-guilty verdict in the police beating of black motorist Rodney King were probably the last time the fraught relationship between African-Americans and law enforcement galvanized as much attention as it has since the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. … In […] Read more »
Did the protesters and police in Ferguson go too far?
The shooting of Michael Brown – an unarmed 18-year-old African-American man who was shot to death by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri – has unleashed a wave of protests in Ferguson that have turned violent at times, as well as a forceful response by local police. Fifty-nine percent of […] Read more »
Nothing Obama and Holder say will change racial debate over Ferguson
… We don’t have to wonder what the reaction would be if Obama talked about the racial components of the events in Ferguson, because we’ve seen it before. There would be an explosive backlash on the right, no matter what Obama actually said. … During the Obama years, the opinions […] Read more »
The Conservative Divide Over Ferguson
We’re used to just about every American controversy polarizing swiftly along right-left lines, but the discussion of events in Ferguson has been a striking exception thus far. Within the commentariat, the most interesting division has opened within American conservatism, where a large group of conservative and libertarian writers have been […] Read more »
Black and White Attitudes Toward Police
The death of 18-year-old African-American Michael Brown at the hands of a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has reopened the subject of black Americans’ relationship with the police, and more generally the differences in the way blacks and whites look at the criminal justice and civil rights situations in […] Read more »