Justice.

Editor,

St. Louis County wants to quiet the protests of an angry community with forceful police violence. Churchmen want to quiet them with admonishments to forgive. Others want to quiet them with apologies. Others with assurances that the truth about the shooting of Michael Brown will be told.

Everyone in a position of power is striving to elicit "peace and quiet" in Ferguson. Just like Benjamin Netanyahu is in Gaza and the West Bank.

Peace and quiet is not the issue.

Preserving the status quo is not the issue.

The issue is: not one more young black man being shoved against a wall and roughed up by fascist cops. Not one more black or Latino kid violently manhandled by a cop, shot down by a cop, arrested for doing nothing, incarcerated, locked in solitary confinement for YEARS.

The issue is institutional racism in America. Racial profiling, police violence. Lousy schools, lousy services. Bigotry. Despicable images of people of color in the media and on the news. Fear and hatred of people of color fanned by demagogues speaking in code and justified with videos of looters and petty criminals that say: "See? This is why we shoot down unarmed people in broad daylight in the middle of the street."

Justice!

Not quiet.

Justice.

NOW!

Re: "Frustration in Ferguson" (8/18/2014)