Posted: April 2nd, 2015

Civil Rights and Political Activism

Taking the Ferguson, Missouri riots of 2014/15 as the basis of your paper, discuss how this social movement emerged as a response to economic and racial inequality, and police practices such as racial profiling and the subsequent political response (the grand jury ruling, police crackdown of social protest) to the Michael Brown shooting. How does this relate to – how might it be seen as evidence of – the “New Jim Crow” as conceived by Michelle Alexander? With reference to the “culture of poverty” thesis, discuss how the issues surrounding the Ferguson riots (crime, poverty, urban underclass dynamics) might be conceived in non-racial terms. Compare and contrast these views, discussing how race is conceived in debates on crime, the racialization of urban ghettoes and police practices in the United States. Connect these debates to social policy and the politics of race in the U.S.