#racialtrauma

On this day August 09, 2014

White Police Officer Shoots and Kills Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri

A day that I will never, ever forget.

On August 9, 2014, a white police officer named Darren Wilson shot an unarmed Black teenager named Michael Brown to death in Ferguson, Missouri. According to reports, Officer Wilson stopped Michael on the street in the afternoon to ask him about a robbery at a nearby convenience store. Although the precise details of what happened next remain unclear, many eyewitness accounts suggest that Michael ran from the officer with his hands raised in the air. Officer Wilson then shot Michael six times and claimed that he had feared for his life. Michael’s body was found approximately 150 feet from the officer’s police vehicle. He had graduated from high school just eight days earlier and was scheduled to begin a vocational training program two days later. There is a presumption of guilt  and dangerousness that has unfairly made people of color, particularly young Black men, targets of police aggression and violence. The shooting and its aftermath sparked weeks of protests in Ferguson and beyond. Demonstrators chanting “hands up, don’t shoot” as a rallying cry against police brutality gathered in the streets facing officers armed with military-grade equipment. Law enforcement’s heavy-handed response to the protests prompted national discussions about the militarization of police forces and the ways in which police officers use violence to repress dissent and maintain racially biased social conditions.

Despite nationwide pleas for accountability, no one was punished for Michael Brown’s death. A grand jury ultimately declined to bring criminal charges against Officer Wilson, and the Department of Justice also refused to file federal civil rights charges.

A prominent Black family is pulling a $1 million scholarship endowment from the University of North Carolina Wilmington after the school said it could no longer maintain language giving special consideration to students committed to serving the African American community under the UNC System's anti-DEI "Equality Policy."

Rather than change the scholarship's original mission, established in honor of longtime physician and educator Dr. Leroy Upperman, the family says it will move the endowment to Howard University, where Upperman earned his medical degree.

Drapetomania was a term coined in 1851 by American physician Samuel A. Cartwright to describe a supposed mental illness that caused enslaved Black people to flee captivity. It is now widely recognized as a form of pseudoscience and a manifestation of scientific racism, as the desire to escape slavery is a natural human response to oppression. Cartwright's "diagnosis" and proposed treatments, such as whipping, were used to justify the institution of slavery. 

Here's a more detailed explanation:

The Concept: Drapetomania, derived from the Greek words "drapetes" (runaway) and "mania" (madness), was presented as a mental illness that afflicted enslaved people who attempted to escape. 

Cartwright's Theory: Cartwright, a physician in the American South, argued that slavery was the natural state for Black people and that those who ran away were mentally ill. He believed that their desire to escape was a disease that needed to be treated. 

Proposed Treatments: Cartwright's suggested treatments included whipping, amputation of toes, and hard labor in the sun. These "treatments" were cruel and inhumane, reflecting the racist ideology of the time. 

Pseudoscience: Drapetomania is now widely discredited as pseudoscience, a term for beliefs and practices presented as scientific but lacking a scientific basis. The concept was used to rationalize the horrors of slavery and to deny the agency and humanity of enslaved people.