Rapper Snoop Dogg and the League of Young Voters came together to host a panel about police brutality and the chaotic events that unfolded in Ferguson, Missouri, after 18-year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot.
In addition to Snoop Dogg, the panel also welcomed Michael Brown’s father, Michael Brown Sr.; Jordan Davis’ mother, Lucia McBath; attorney Benjamin Crump and Chuck Creekmur of AllHipHop.
The panel, titled No Guns Allowed: Fallout From Ferguson, took place during the BET Hip-Hop Awards weekend in Atlanta.
The group of panelists discussed what the African-American community needs to do to help solve issues of racism and police brutality.
For many of the panelists, the key was to keep the conversation going.
“It’s important as a Black man to push this issue,” Creekmur said, according to Rolling Out. “There is a post-racial thing that wants you to believe that racism doesn’t exist. When people say they don’t see color, that’s just coded language. We have to keep pushing the envelope to make sure. Black media must play a role to push the conversation.”
Social media vehicles like Black Twitter, the online sub-community that has become the topic of major academic and societal discussions, have been adamant about making sure issues of racism and police brutality are no long swept under the rug.
Meanwhile, more media outlets are trying to pay closer attention to Black victims.
Of course, conversation won’t be enough to result in change.
McBath, the mother of the Black teen who was gunned down for playing loud music at a Florida gas station, said the African-American community has to make sure the lawmakers are fighting for change as well.
“There are people in this country who use the law for their own benefit,” McBath said. “If you do not push against the laws that restrain you as a human being, you can only blame yourself. I will continue to fight as much as I can.”
She went on to reveal that she has had a hard time getting people to take action.
In a post-verdict press conference, Jordan Davis’ parents, Lucia McBath and Ronald Davis speak to the media in Jacksonville, Florida. February 15, 2014. REUTERS/Bob Mack/Florida Times-Union/Pool
“We have to camp out at the state capitol,” she said. “I’m having a hard time mobilizing the faith-based community to come with. We must be in the lawmakers’ faces to get things done.”
In the case of Jordan Davis, many people feel justice has not been served.
While the shooter, Michael Dunn, was found guilty on four counts of attempted second-degree murder, he was not found guilty of actually killing Davis.
Then there was the acquittal of George Zimmerman that sent the entire nation into shock.
Zimmerman was the volunteer neighborhood watchman who fatally shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in a Florida neighborhood in 2012.
Now the nation is watching anxiously as a grand jury has been formed to decide Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson’s fate. Wilson has yet to be arrested for fatally shooting Michael Brown several times even after the teen allegedly put his hands up to surrender.
The grand jury is allowed to wait until 2015 to make a decision about the case.
