\u201cWhat is justice and how do we find it?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Educator and journalist Melissa Harris-Perry asked the poignant question moments prior to the Feb. 25 advance screening at Showplace Icon Theater in St. Louis Park of the first episode of the upcoming docuseries, \u201cFinding Justice,\u201d which is set to air on BET. The six-episode series, created by Dream Hampton, the creator of the explosive \u201cSurviving R. Kelly\u201d docuseries and executive produced by Dwayne \u201cRock\u201d Johnson, airs to the public beginning March 10. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFinding Justice\u201d focuses on six cities dealing with six unique circumstances, but unfortunately, not unique issues affecting Black Americans \u2013 so-called \u201cStand Your Ground\u201d laws, police brutality, bail reform, criminalization of children, voter suppression and the lead paint crisis in urban areas. The cities highlighted are Tampa (stand your ground), St. Louis (bail reform), Baltimore (lead paint crisis), Los Angeles (civilization of children), Atlanta (voter suppression) and here in Minneapolis\/St. Paul the spotlight shines on police brutality, chronicling the killings (and aftermath protests) of Jamar Clark and Philando Castile. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Monday\u2019s screening of the debut episode focused on this past August\u2019s killing of Markeis McGlockton, a Black man, killed by Michael Drejka, white, who used Florida\u2019s Stand Your Ground law as his defense even though he initiated a confrontation with McGlockton\u2019s pregnant girlfriend over being parked in a handicap parking spot. Following the viewing, Harris-Perry moderated a panel discussion with Hampton, Marcus Owens, executive director, African American Leadership Forum, Miski Noor, Black Lives Matter and organizer Kandace Montgomery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Much of the conversation centered on grief and trauma. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI need Black people to have space to grieve,\u201d said Harris-Perry, noting how many mothers of slain Black children have been thrust in to activist mode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noor said not being able to show grief continues to perpetuate a myth that Blacks are without emotion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have this stereotype of a strong Black person and the stereotype is that we don\u2019t grieve.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Montgomery, who was vigilant in the Justice for Jamar protest that lasted 18 straight days outside of the Minneapolis Police Department Fourth Precinct following the November 2015 killing of Clark, a 24-year-old unarmed Black man killed by two white Minneapolis police officers, Mark Ringgenberg and Dustin Schwarze, said she and other protesters had to deal with the trauma of being on the front lines in the fight for justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs a person who slept in my car for 18 days \u2026 we, the homies, struggled,\u201d said Montgomery. \u201cI had to deal with suicidal thoughts; some of us got addicted (to chemical substances). That\u2019s why this fight for justice is so important to me.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Noor said she is not fighting just for her own justice. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know if I\u2019m going to live to see justice, but I know I\u2019m going to be a force to create it,\u201d said Noor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hampton said she and BET were intentional in choosing to premiere \u201cFinding Justice\u201d in Minneapolis and to highlight the efforts of area organizers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe could have gone to any city to talk about police brutality but the organizers here were such a model for organizing that we wanted to be a part of it,\u201d said Hampton. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFinding Justice\u201d airs beginning March 10 at 7 p.m. central standard time on BET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cWhat is justice and how do we find it?\u201d Educator and journalist Melissa Harris-Perry asked the poignant question moments prior to the Feb. 25 advance screening at Showplace Icon Theater in St. Louis Park of the first episode of the upcoming docuseries, \u201cFinding Justice,\u201d which is set to air on BET. The six-episode series, created […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1309,2449,32],"class_list":["post-3548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bet","tag-melissa-harris-perry","tag-twin-cities","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3548"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3601,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3548\/revisions\/3601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/apexsamplework.com\/insightnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}