I wish I knew where to begin. You've probably read—or ignored, or just RT'd—a couple dozen articles about what's been happening in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson, Missouri, since Officer Darren Wilson shot unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown to death. Pictures of his body—left out in the street for hours—started popping up in my various timelines, harkening back to the photos of black bodies that used to hang from so many trees, the gruesome prizes for the proud, grinning ghouls posed about. These images were meant as a warning to us, then and now.
"You took my son away from me! You know how hard it was to get him to stay in school and graduate? You know how many black men graduate? Not many—because you bring them down to this type of level, where they feel like they don't got nothing to live for. 'They're gonna try to take me out anyway.'" —Lesley McSpadden, mother of Mike Brown
The images we've been seeing—the flag-shirted, dreadlocked man throwing a tear gas canister, armored police attacking peaceful protesters and journalists, Mike Brown's crying mother—these are era-defining documents, things we won't soon shake...
