[Peace-discuss] Ferguson activists reject religious leaders’ platitudes

[David Johnson via Peace-discuss]

  St Louis protests: Ferguson activists reject religious leaders’ platitudes

Younger black generation rails at ineffectiveness of peaceful tactics as 
day of mass civil disobedience begins across city

  * <https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/oct/13/st-louis-protests-religious-leaders-messages-anger-ferguson-activists>

  *
      o
        Chris McGreal <http://www.theguardian.com/profile/chrismcgreal>
        in St Louis
      o
      o The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian>, Monday 13
        October 2014 03.47 EDT

Cornel West speaks in St Louis Cornel West said the older generation 
'has been too obsessed with being successful rather than being faithful 
to a cause'. Photograph: James Cooper/Demotix/Corbis

Frustration and anger among young black Americans at an older 
generation’s apparent failure to adequately respond to the killing of 
Michael Brown by a white police officer in Ferguson upended a key event 
at a weekend of mass protest on Sunday.

The showdown exposed a generational divide over how best to confront 
police racism, brutality and use of excessive force as organisers of the 
“weekend of resistance” <http://fergusonoctober.com/>, which has drawn 
activists from across the US, plan to stage mass civil disobedience 
across St Louis on Monday.

While older civil rights leaders hark back to the more peaceful methods 
of half a century ago, some younger people question their effectiveness 
today and are pressing for more confrontational tactics.

The fuse was lit when hundreds of people who came to hear the 
intellectual and activist Cornel West speak were subjected to speeches 
by a succession of preachers from the major religions offering 
essentially the same message about loving one’s fellow man and standing 
up against injustice. The meeting was billed as being “in the tradition 
of the civil rights movement” but the tone was in part governed by the 
venue for the meeting, St Louis University, a Catholic institution.

Some in the audience grew restless and then angered at the series of 
reverends, imams and rabbis until a small group of activists demanded to 
speak. They were supported by chants of “let them be heard” and “this is 
what democracy looks like”, a rallying cry at protests over Brown’s 
shooting.

Tef Poe, a St Louis rapper and activist for Hands Up United, a campaign 
group seeking racial justice in Ferguson, took the microphone and noted 
that the Christian, Jewish and Muslim preachers on the stage were not 
the people on the street trying to protect people from the police.

“The people who want to break down racism from a philosophical level, 
y’all didn’t show up,” he said to loud cheers.

At that point, the planned programme fell apart and the focus shifted. 
Some younger black speakers demanded to know whether the people on the 
stage had a plan of action.

“All those speeches before, you’ve heard them all before. That’s not 
going to change, right?” said one. “I was hoping for a plan from our 
elders and I was disappointed,” said another.

A young man used more graphic language. “I’ve been out there since 
motherfucking August 9,” he told the various preachers. “If you don’t 
turn up at the protest get the fuck out of here.”

By then some had already left the stage, although it was not clear if it 
was because they were unhappy at the turn of events or to make space.

In the midst of this, a lone white man in the audience caused uproar 
when he shouted that African Americans should not underestimate white 
people’s “gift to you”. The man had to be escorted from the arena.

West did not disappoint the audience, telling listeners that an older 
generation of African Americans had failed them.

“The older generation has been too well adjusted to injustice to listen 
to the younger generation. The older generation has been too obsessed 
with being successful rather than being faithful to a cause that was 
zeroing in on the plight of the poor and working people,” he said. 
“Thank God the awakening is setting in. And any time the awakening sets 
in it gets a little messy.”

A little later he drew loud cheers as he sharpened his argument. “What 
our young people are also upset about is that they understand that too 
many of our black middle class brothers and sisters have been 
‘reniggerised’. All you’ve got to do is give big positions, give them 
some status, give them a little money, but walking around they’re still 
intimidated, they don’t want to tell the truth about the situation.”

One of the earlier speakers, Reverend Traci Blackmon, touched on a 
similar theme.

“We have been fooled all these years into thinking that when a few get 
through the doors all is well. Our generation has been guilty of 
confusing access with ownership,” she said.

Not all the earlier speakers were unwelcome. Hedy Epstein, a 90-year-old 
Holocaust survivor who was part of the kindertransport to Britain, told 
how she arrived in the US in 1948 and was taken aback by racial 
segregation where she was living in the south. Epstein was arrested in 
August after joining a protest over Brown’s killing and is awaiting 
trial for “failure to disperse”.

But the meeting appeared to mark a watershed as protest organisers 
prepared for what is billed as a day of civil disobedience on Monday, 
modelled on “Moral Monday” demonstrations launched over political 
policies in North Carolina, by training volunteers in passive resistance 
and what to do if they are arrested. Churches ran a “faith in action 
mobilizing training” session on Sunday afternoon that included the 
occupation of a police station. At other sessions, volunteers were 
instructed in blocking traffic and sit down resistance.

Organisers of the “Weekend of Resistance” have kept their plans for 
Monday to themselves but say they will alert activists to actions at 
short notice by text message, Twitter and other social media.

At the end of the mass meeting, one of the young people who had taken 
over the stage called on people to join a protest vigil at the site 
where St Louis police last week shot another 18 year-old black man, 
Vonderrit Myers. The police said Myers shot at an officer who attempted 
to stop him for a “pedestrian check”. His family say he was unarmed.

As the protesters gathered and debated how confrontational to be with 
the police, Myers’s father appeared and told them: “Whatever it is y’all 
want to do, I’m fine with it”. Demonstrators began blocking roads in the 
area.

In the early hours of Sunday morning, dozens of activists attempted to 
occupy a convenience store in support of Myers. The police arrested 17 
people for unlawful assembly.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20141015/8e1c7384/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Cornel-West-speaks-in-St--011.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 53243 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace-discuss/attachments/20141015/8e1c7384/attachment-0001.jpg>