The Washington Post has appointed a “social change reporter,” Sandhya Somashekar, and her front-page story on Wednesday promoted black protesters surrounding the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. The subhead was “Protesters aim to keep pricking the consciousness of whites and the political establishment.”
Somashekar made absolutely zero reference to the Post’s recent reporting that seven or eight African American eyewitnesses are backing up the account of police officer Darren Wilson that Michael Brown was fighting for the policeman’s gun, causing Wilson to fire in self-defense. Instead, the whole story focused on evidence-denying protesters preparing for outrage and violence if Wilson is not indicted.
Much of the story focused on Deray McKesson, a “senior director for human capital at the Minneapolis school district.”
The protest campaign, which emerged out of the riots that followed Brown’s killing, lacks a single charismatic leader or direction from a national organization. But at the front lines, an influential contingent of organizers including Mckesson is giving the movement a sense of identity and shaping how the American public sees it.
Regardless of whether the grand jury indicts Wilson, protest leaders say they plan to keep pricking the consciousness of whites and the political establishment, using confrontational tactics to make it clear that the lives of African Americans must be protected.
McKesson and the other protesters are never identified as leftist, despite “direct action training” with Occupy Wall Street radicals. “People just want a crumb of justice right now, and an indictment would be a little something to tide us over,” said McKesson. “Long term, this movement is much bigger.”
How can the Post profile a movement seeking a “crumb of justice” in this case without mentioning anyone who dares to believe that the policeman was justified to defend himself? When African American eyewitnesses refuse to speak in public for fear of being hurt, the Post is only aiding a movement of political intimidation that pays no attention to the evidence.
The headline on the front page was “I sleep, eat and breathe this.” But this actual quote from 21-year-old activist Shermale Humphrey came in paragraph 30, at the very end.
Now, she said, standing at the Rowan Community Center on a run-down block in the Hamilton Heights neighborhood of St. Louis, “I sleep, eat and breathe this.”
To her right, people touched up signs that said “F--- the Police” and “Shoot Back.” Behind her, others walked in and out of the building with steaming plates of barbecued chicken — a sort of fortification for the grand jury announcement. All around was fodder for her disaffection: abandoned buildings surrounded by overgrown lawns and litter.
Humphrey represents a more militant strain within this movement. She considers herself a “revolutionary,” and although she does not support violent protests, she believes burning down the QuikTrip gas station in Ferguson during the first days of the riots was an appropriate response by protesters, “because people have so much built-up anger at the system and they have a right to express themselves.”
