This week, legal scholar and author Patricia J. Williams delivered a series of talks at Washington University. The great granddaughter of a slave and a white southern lawyer, Williams is known for her explorations of racism in America. She is a law professor at Columbia University, who refers to her as “one of the most provocative intellectuals in American law.” Williams sat down with the St. Louis American to weigh in on legal issues in Ferguson.
Currently in Ferguson, there are a lot of ordinances and legal issues in question. Arrested protesters are being charged the maximum bail amount. Police are enforcing a “five second rule” of standing still while protesting. What is your opinion of these tactics implemented by the police and government officials to obtain peace in the Ferguson unrest?
The measures that the police have deployed to keep peace, as they put it, have been spectacularly wrongheaded. They seem almost designed to ramp things up. There are techniques that have been tried and true in terms of allowing people to burn off steam and express themselves. You saw a little bit of that the second or third day when the Highway Patrol came in. They were using classic techniques in de-escalating confrontation. Poking people to keep them walking is not among those techniques. Hiding their badges is not among those techniques. I’d be interested to know why the police think they are doing something to keep the peace, when in fact, I think they need to be better trained to allow people their First Amendment rights. Not shaking up the bottle and then putting a cap on it.
The Department of Justice Civil Rights Division has been in Ferguson for several weeks. What role can and should the federal government play in this situation?
The Department of Justice has an oversight rule. There is a lot of excuse making. There is no question that these are bad policies and practices and police behaviors. I understand that you may be under staffed. I understand that you have a series of small towns with police departments that are thin in numbers and who may not be well trained. That is no excuse. So where there has been no oversight, you need someone to perform the oversight instead of delaying the policies that need to be instituted to make things better. All of this is before you get to the real provocation of having huge tanks and people absolutely untrained to use machines of war in the streets of small towns like this. That is stunning, both acquisition and lack of training.
What can we expect if the grand jury does not decide to bring criminal charges against Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson?
I’m sure there will be people upset, but usually there aren’t nearly the riots that white communities are afraid of – that there’s going to be a slave uprising. We are so afraid in this country of the next new slave revolt. I am less concerned about that. I am more concerned about the fact that if he’s not indicted, we will have yet another statistic of lack of accountability. Again, it depends on the investigation and the evidence, but I think it will be perceived as the officers and those designed to protect are never held accountable for the deadliest of their actions, whether intentional or accidental. If someone hits someone accidentally with a car, they can still be prosecuted for manslaughter. The idea that this happens so frequently and carelessly is a statistical worry that far exceeds whether Darren Wilson is indicted.
Protesters have been on the streets for more than 50 days now. Some are concerned that the movement lacks strategy. If you could sit down with the coalitions and the young people, what advice or words of encouragement would you give?
This is precisely why you need to be trained in community organizing because to make long-term institutional change you do need to have strategy. You do need to have an institution that is sustained in its expression of concern. So they may not be able to do it on such short notice, they may not have the resources. But they need to fold on their concerns, their networks, their cellphone lists and their press contacts into more established organizations that are here. I don’t know if that’s the Urban League, the NAACP, or whatever is Occupy Wall Street. The attack on community organizing has been an attack on the expression of political concern that includes what kind of policies your police department has.
One young male protester called this movement ‘a young black man’s war.’ What do you think of that statement?
We live in a world where it’s harder to gather in public spaces. We don’t have a sense of public spaces as we did in the 60s during the Civil Rights Movement. Much of what I assume what he means by that is it’s a reference to the patrolling of public spaces. It’s about confining geographies. Public protest gets redefined as unrest. For the most part, this has been a peaceful demonstration. The ability to express oneself is defined by social technology – having it go viral, putting it on the Internet. But I think this is a concern that affects all kinds of groups. A lot of people feel embodied as Michael brown, as young as black as male. But people should not forget that these protests are quite integrated. This is a mothers’ movement. This is a family movement. A good part of what has made this an international movement is the attack on journalists when their cameras were smashed and brought to the ground. This is a convergence of lots things going on in the world – pacifying people by confining the physical space in which they can express themselves.
