• KayWhitlock I agree completely — thank you Kay

  • KayWhitlock

    I have concerns about Holder and his tenure, but bless him for the Ferguson, NOLA PD and Mississippi school-to-prison pipeline investigations.  DOJ has given us invaluable and largely unprecedented tools to use in organizing.  For those who believe he “failed” to bring charges against George Zimmerman and Darren Wilson, well, the law sets a very high bar for demonstrable violations of civil rights in such contexts.

    In any case, even had there been charges and trials (unlikely) and convictions (even more unlikely), this wouldn’t have put a single dent in structural racism.  It wouldn’t have introduced structural change.  It wouldn’t even have contributed to systemic accountability.  Moreover, even the idea that such actions would constitute “victory” would only reify the idea that the criminal legal system – with its component parts of policing, prosecution, prisons – is capable of producing justice.  In this country, it is not.  An ethic of vengeance, white supremacy, economic violence, and gender violence  cannot ever produce anything approximating justice.