Ferguson: Racism in Action, or Just Plain Old Greed?

The Department of Justice has issued its report on the police in Ferguson, Missouri, and it's completely disgusting.

The city Finance Director ordered the Chief of Police to increase revenue by writing more tickets. The police attack blacks preferentially, stopping and arresting them at a higher rate than whites.

A black woman parked her car illegally once, got two tickets for $152, and when she couldn't pay the fine, she was arrested twice, and spent six days in jail. The city refused partial payments, and over seven years she has paid $550, and but they keep jacking up the fines and she still owes $541.

And when these people are jailed, the time served isn't even recorded by the court to reduce their fine.

Cops just drive up to people sitting in cars or waiting for the bus and harass them, accusing them of being pedophiles.

The only reason the cops arrest these people is because they resisted arrest.

In all cases where the only reason cops arrested a stopped driver is for "resisting arrest," the victim was black. Yeah, you read that right. The only reason they arrest these people is because they resisted arrest. If you're black and you complain when the cops in Ferguson harass you, they arrest you.

And because these people have no money, they can't hire a lawyer to sue these bastards.

The Ferguson city government is trying to balance its budget on the backs of its poorest citizens, who are overwhelmingly black. This is part of a larger pattern of the rich and powerful using their economic clout to take away what little money the poor have. This pattern is well established with payday lenders who entrap the disadvantaged in an endless cycle of usurious loans, and rent-to-own stores that charge twice what you can get products for at Walmart.

Does Ferguson do this for malicious and racist reasons, just to keep blacks down? Or is it just because the poor can't afford to pay the fines up front, which means that -- like the payday lenders -- they can just keep poor blacks on the hook forever, charging them again and again and again for the same minor infractions that whites are never charged with, because the cops don't even patrol those areas since they're ostensibly "low crime?"

This is the kind of crap that African Americans in Ferguson have to put up with every day of their lives. And it's not just Ferguson. This happens all over the country, as with Eric Garner in New York. More disgustingly, it's not just African American adults, it's even the kids.

For example, in Georgia two girls, one white and one black, wrote on a lavatory stall. The treatment they received at the hands of the system was totally different. The white girl's parents paid $100 restitution and that was basically it. But Mikia Hutchings couldn't afford to pay:

While both students were suspended from school for a few days, Mikia had to face a school disciplinary hearing and, a few weeks later, a visit by a uniformed officer from the local Sheriff’s Department, who served her grandmother with papers accusing Mikia of a trespassing misdemeanor and, potentially, a felony.

As part of an agreement with the state to have the charges dismissed in juvenile court, Mikia admitted to the allegations of criminal trespassing. Mikia, who is African-American, spent her summer on probation, under a 7 p.m. curfew, and had to complete 16 hours of community service in addition to writing an apology letter to a student whose sneakers were defaced in the incident.

It is just crazy that a school is involving the police and the courts in cases of childish misbehavior. The rich can just buy their way out of all their problems, while the poor have their entire lives ruined from childhood on.

Worse, why are the cops are wasting their time harassing twelve-year-old children instead of doing real police work? How many hours of the court's and the police department's time were wasted? Ten? Twenty? Forty? This city most likely spent $1,000 to $5,000 in a vain attempt to extract a $100 fine from a 12-year-old.

It's hard to believe that cities like Ferguson can recoup the salaries of court officials and police officers with fines levied against African Americans who can't pay them for puffed-up offenses they don't even bother to charge whites with. And I thought putting people in jail for not paying fines went away with debtor's prison? Apparently not... Private probation companies are raking in millions by putting poor people in jail for non-payment of fines.

Do these cities have more cops than they need, if they have nothing better to do with their time than hassle poor people? Or write racist emails at work joking about how Obama wouldn't be president for more than four years because "what black man holds a steady job for four years?"

No wonder their budgets are in such a mess.

Sounds like a whole lot of these folks should be fired.