PHOTO/WECOPWATCH
Interview: Hands Up United in Ferguson, MO
Editor’s note: The People’s Tribune interviewed Taurean Russell, a spokesperson for handsupunited.org who was in the front lines of the Ferguson uprising, and was targeted by police and jailed because of his organizing.
People’s Tribune: How did you get involved?
Taurean Russell: I was just a regular person before this happened. I’d go to Black things and try to think about conscious things that affect oppressed people. What brought me out was seeing the tweet with Mike Brown’s dead body. It was shocking to see police officers standing over a dead kid. There were babies and young kids, elementary age children looking at the body. People compare it to a public lynching. The police were trying to say: “This is going to happen to you next; this is what we’re here for.” I heard Mike Brown’s mother say “Why did they kill my son?” She was crying. I tweeted out and asked people to meet me at the police station. A little over 100 people were there. I made a statement that Black people have been done wrong in this country for 400 years, and they can’t make 400 years right in one night. Every day since then I have been protesting and strategizing and coming up with demands. I’ve interviewed five witnesses. People are in fear for their lives. One witness said that Officer Wilson stood over Mike Brown and shot him in the head. The police were going to peoples’ houses, offering money and free rent for video of the shooting. One girl traded it for rent.
PT: Speak about the support you are getting.
TR: Palestinians came in and showed us how to make homemade gas masks. You don’t have to be Black to know about militarized police. Fast food workers from the Show Me 15 came and protested with us. They know there’s something about being poor—that some kind of hierarchy has to keep you in place. Whites from the community came out; even a white business owner. She’s not one of those people who have the “I Love Ferguson signs.” Most people who support Mike Brown see that as a slap in the face. Do you support the police chief or the Mayor—the ones who are covering up the execution?
PT: Speak about the poverty in the area.
TR: Three of the poorest zip codes in the state are here. They have the worst schools, the highest poverty and public assistance rate. People vote for the same people and get the same result, whether Democrat or Republican. People say if we come out to vote and sign others up that this wouldn’t happen. But those who did vote don’t vote in police officers. We do vote for the prosecutor but he’s a Democrat, so that doesn’t do us any good.
PT: Can people unite?
TR: There’s a trick of racism. It tricks Blacks to believe they can be full participants in the system, and it tricks whites, especially those in poverty, that one day they can become part of the system, but they can’t. One person might make it, but what about the whole community that you left?
PT: What’s the next step?
TR: We’re discussing whether the Department of Justice has the right to try our case; whether to take it to the United Nations; and whether we just need to take it to people who are our allies.
Humanity is Outdated?
Ferguson is just the tip of our inhumanity. When the cops pull out a gun and executes a youth I say that is the very essence of loss of our human attributes.
Such barbaric actions stems from placing money first, before the well being of people. It happens before any officer draws a weapon.
Lack of credit and the homeless remaining homeless because those telling landlords of our credit rating informs them we are bad risks, contribute to people’s lives being treated as less than cattle. And because it take years to improve the credit rating, this goes on without end. Genocide, is what the police uses to hike up his self image. Why not Cops are not held accountable?
Cops are told by the elite, those who think profits are better then the life of others “badly paid people are no good.” Our newspapers indicate this through there lack of covering the words of the poor. To end poverty the high standing media must cover the words of us poor, weekly.
It would lose the hopelessness, of being badly paid. And placing people first above profits would make more profits; because tortured workers could afford higher end items. It would lift up AMERICA.
We in the USA, pay workers less than the need, and we mistakenly call it minimum wage. Minimum wage is barely enough to survive, not enough for humanity to thrive. There should be something called DECENT Wage. Meaning workers make the $22.50 to $34.00 an hour required to pay all the costs of living.
It should be illegal for lawmakers to allow renters to pay for their own means of being denied rents. Because rents are a basic of life, renters should not be compelled to pay fees for having the possible landlord told they credit rating is 440 or under 650. This is loss of hope its a society more cruel then the caveman time.
It should be found unconstitutional for the bottom flanked or most poorly paid people to be treated as criminals for being homeless or hungry. When society completes the process. But profit whether you call it wage, is above Human and constitutional right, and there are no lawyers to fight even the wickest of lost of life. No lawyers to fight lost of the first human right. This is an area which can place profits in lawyers pockets, and all law makers need do is allow attorney’s to collect damages when they win human rights cases. The quality of life can go up, when people care about others. Genocide should be outlawed. Love of money over life, or basic needs by cops, or credit bussiness’s, must be outlawed.