Justice

This Simple Tweet Reveals One Undeniable Reality Since Michael Brown's Death

August 9th 2015

On the one-year anniversary of Michael Brown's death in Ferguson, Missouri, the trending hashtag #FergusonTaughtMe trended on social media. People have used the hashtag to express what's changed about their outlook on race in America over the last 12 months. The topics of these posts have varied from police brutality to race relations to poverty.

One tweet from Goldie Taylor summed things up simply:

The lack of trust has been apparent in the year since Michael Brown's death, where the official story did not seem to comport with many eyewitness statements. Although the consensus opinion seems to be that there was a struggle between Brown and Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, how exactly the unarmed teenager Brown ended up shot so many times is still not entirely clear. After Brown, the initial police stories about the deaths of Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, and Sandra Bland were questioned. And many times, inconsistencies have been found. No matter what ultimately comes out of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, at least one consequence will be a lack of trust in police stories about officer-related deaths.

ATTN: looked back on the one-year anniversary in this video:

There have been other thought-provoking posts. Prominent activist DeRay McKesson weighed in on the hastag, saying:

Penn Badgley, who starred in the television show Gossp Girl, said his view of the role of white allies in the movement has changed:

Shaun King, another activist and writer at the DailyKos, tweeted:

The musician Questlove said this:

Here are some other interesting posts:

Some have used the hashtag to criticize the Black Lives Matter movement, however:

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