Kendra Brea Cooper
On April 12, 2015, Twenty-Five year old Baltimore man, Freddie Gray, died from injuries sustained while in police custody. The city of Baltimore has a history of police brutality, systemic racism, and heavy poverty- and now people are out in the streets fighting for their rights and resisting this violent system. This is about Freddie Gray and the bigger issues the entire U.S. faces today. Here is a list of articles to help you stay thoughtful, critical,and updated.
"Rioting broke out on Monday in Baltimore-an angry response to the death of Freddie Gray, a death my native city seems powerless to explain. Gray did not die mysteriously in some back alley but in the custody of the city's publicly appointed guardians of order."- The Atlantic
"(ANTIMEDIA) Freddie Gray is dead and Baltimore is in flames. People are pointing fingers in all directions and yet no one seems to have any genuine answers. The 25-year-old Baltimore resident had his spinal cord snapped while in police custody on April 12."
"I’m overwhelmed by the pervasive slandering of protesters in Baltimore this weekend for not remaining peaceful. The bad-apple rhetoric would have us believe that most Baltimore protesters are demonstrating the right way—as is their constitutional right—and only a few are disrupting the peace, giving the movement a bad name.
This spin should be disregarded, first because of the virtual media blackout of any of the action happening on the ground, particularly over the weekend. Equally, it makes no sense to cite the Constitution in any demonstration for Black civil rights (that document was not written about us, remember?), but certainly not one organized specifically to call attention to the fact that the state breaks its own laws with regard to the oppressed on a nearly constant basis." -SALON
"After Baltimore police and a crowd of teens clashed near the Mondawmin Mall in northwest Baltimore on Monday afternoon, news reports described the violence as a riot triggered by kids who had been itching for a fight all day. But in interviews with Mother Jones and other media outlets, teachers and parents maintain that police actions inflamed a tense-but-stable situation."-Mother Jones
"On Monday, the media was quick to paint a single picture of Baltimore: a chaos scene of violence and mayhem filled with images of looting, rioting, the burning of a CVS and the torching of a police car. But on the ground, a very different story unfolded."-MIC
"The death of Freddie Gray at the hands of Baltimore police sparked outrage and protests by thousands of Baltimore residents and people of color around the world. It seems that almost daily, the headline "Unarmed Black Man Killed By Police" has pulled back the veil on what many white Americans, liberal and conservative alike, have been blinded to by privilege: racism is real in American society."-Alternet
"Hundreds of people marched in Manhattan, New York City on Wednesday night as protests against the death of Freddie Gray in police custody in Baltimore spread across the United States. Chanting slogans such as "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" and "Baltimore is Everywhere," demonstrators denounced excessive force used by US police officers, and alleged racism."-VICE news.
"Late Wednesday night, the Washington Post dropped a bombshell in the Freddie Gray case: according to a second-hand report from the prisoner who traveled in the same police van, Gray was "banging against the walls" of the van as though he "was intentionally trying to injure himself."
Pop culture and all that ideology sitting in the blind spot. Also crafts.
