I *know* that there are people out there like this, but I can’t believe there are people out there like this.
In a recently-released report from the Department of Justice clearly shows that the city of Ferguson has a “racial problem”. And that’s an understatement.
The report highlighted emails exchanged by Ferguson officers that were blatantly racist. The report called out the one and only municipal judge in Ferguson regularly raised fees on African Americans illegally and colluded with Ferguson police and prosecutor to boost fees for the government.
The DOJ cited the city’s top clerk, Mary Ann Twitty for also sending out racist emails and routinely dismissing tickets for Caucasian offenders and relatives yet went out of her way to get money out of African Americans every single time.
Remember when Ferguson’s Police Chief infamously told CBS News that “there is not a racial problem in the police department.” For people of color, that sounded laughable then, but in light of all of the Department of Justice’s report, it now feels like a skit from Saturday Night Live.
If you think that these handful of people were the extent of the racism in Ferguson’s government; that it’s just a few bad apples then you’re completely naive. If this investigation doesn’t make you believe that racism had something to do with the death of Michael Brown, I don’t know what it will take.
