It gave America a lot of time to think on the state of the police force in this great state. How much power do we give them? At what point do we fight back against them?
Despite however you may have answered Mike Brown's story and the impact it all had was real. Eventually the riots slowed, not stopped, but their intensity had began to die. For better or worse.
However, that was until Wednesday night, October the 8th, when protesters took to the streets of St. Louis (which Ferguson lies outside of). These protests were started due to the death of Vonderrit Myers, an African American boy who was 18 years old, from the hand of a police officer.
This is always a truly tragic sort of thing to happen, and naturally people showed their hatred for this sort of violence through their protests. They started marching and holding signs saying things like "Don't shoot", "We will not forget", and "Black Lives Matter".
However, I would like to say about this kind of event, that we often jump quick to conclusion when we hear the story. You hear that a police officer killed a kid and, more often than not, you will hear about the enraged parents and friends of the dead. They will demand justice and peace simultaneously.
When the Mike Brown protests erupted they started peacefully in demonstration of their anger toward the death of Brown.
Eventually, though, there were less and less honest protesters and more looters and criminals taking advantage of a terrible situation.
Then, when more facts started showing up, and we all realized it might not have been as closed case as a racist event against an African American, and maybe it was a two-way road, I for one realized I may have made up my mind too early.
I ask that we do not do the same thing with Vonderrit's death.
Sit back, pay attention to the facts, and decide what needs to change. Form your own opinions. Often people in this informational age end up letting news anchors and television broadcasters tell them what their opinion is.
We don't have to live like that, though. As I said, this is the Age of Information. We have the ability to find our own beliefs and gain the knowledge we desire, despite who may say otherwise. We learned that when Egypt tried to shut the Internet off and keep us in the dark.
Here are some other news sites if you're looking for a wider range of viewpoints.
Vice News
Nation of Change
Huffington Post
The Real News
Also, if you haven't heard, Jeremy Renner's new movie Kill The Messenger comes out today. The movie looks very promising and I know that I for one will be seeing it.
The movie is about the true story of a journalist named Gary Webb who in 1996 published a series called "Dark Alliance" about the CIA's involvement in the cocaine trade (Funny, we don't seem to learn that one in school...).
After he posted the story the CIA secretly worked with several newspapers, including his own, to discredit him. They eventually succeeded.
Webb always spoke of "government people" searching around his house after the events. Finally, Webb was found dead from a double gunshot wound. At the time, the coroner deemed it suicide, however further evidence suggests he was murdered.
I can only imagine by who.
That's all for today! Be sure to check back in tomorrow for my next entry.
"Judge me if you will. We are all going to die one day. I intend to deserve it." -Che Guevara
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