From Ferguson to the Nation: What if Moral Mondays Came Everyday? - a podcast by Laura Flanders

The Moral Monday movement came to Missouri. What if it spread nationally, and to the rest of the week?

Police arrested more than fifty people in front of the Ferguson Police Department Monday October 13, during demonstrations against the police killing of black men in the area, including teenager Michael Brown last August. The one person police have yet to arrest, is officer Darren Wilson, Brown’s shooter. And that was one of the complaints of the protestors.

Organizers planned the action as part of a weekend of resistance, inspired by the weekly Moral Monday protests in North Carolina which which started a year ago, in protest of right wing attacks.

Among those arrested in Ferguson Monday was Cornell William Brooks president of the NAACP and Dr. Cornel West, along with religious leaders of every faith and gender and race. Critics called everyone "outside agitators" of course.
But police impunity is hardly a local problem.
The actions came as a study by Pro Publica revealed that black teens were about 21 times as likely as their white peers to be shot and killed by police, and as the online activist group Color of Change kicked off a campaign to tweet the name of one black police killing victim every hour, for the duration of the Ferguson protests. There are plenty of names because according to Pro Publica, in the seven years leading up to 2012, white officers killed a black person at least twice a week.

What next? The power of the Moral Monday movement has come from its persistence and the breadth of the alliances behind it. Anti-austerity activists teamed up with reproductive rights campaigners, union and religious leaders. They have distinct issues and experiences, but they’ve made common cause.

Missouri’s seen some of that sort of multi-denominational action. Many workers in the St. Louis area Fast Food campaign, for example, were in the streets protesting the killing of Brown at the start.

Still, it’s also true that in our increasingly re-segregated nation, too much ignorance continues. Whether its willful or not, is almost beside the point. On the eve of the protests white residents in St. Louis told the Washington Post they’d been surprised, even "shocked" by the racial divisions exposed since the killing of Brown

Listen. Friends don’t let friends drink and drive. It’s too dangerous. What if we, especially we White people didn’t let our friends live in oblivious privilege. It’s just as dangerous for the public health.

What if, every time some TV agitator accused the NAACP of sending in outsiders, we answered that there is no getting outside police killings.... What if, Bill McKibben who led hundreds of thousands to protest climate justice in New York, stood up and said: “That’s me you’re talking about.”

We can make common cause. It may take Moral Mondays, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays. But perhaps at the end of it, we’ll have police as ready to arrest their own shooters as they are speedy to arrest Cornel West.

I'm Laura Flanders . You can watch my interview with indigenous activist Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz, on the "true history" of the United States on the Laura Flanders Show at GRITtv.org. You can also find our more about our syndication on TeleSUR English and beyond. To tell me what you think, write to me: Laura@GRITtv.org.

Further episodes of The F Word with Laura Flanders

Further podcasts by Laura Flanders

Website of Laura Flanders