American cops rarely go to jail for the killings of civilians, and the same goes for police officers in South Africa. And in both countries, the anger at such perceived biases is at odds with the perception that they’ve become post-racial societies after electing black leaders.
In 1981, uprisings broke out in communities all throughout England, with poverty and heavy-handed policing to blame. If that sounds familiar to you, black Britons who remember the riots also see similarities in how the US and UK treat minority communities.
Correspondent Daniel Estrin often files stories for us on the violent outbreaks in Jerusalem and the West Bank. But when he returned home to visit his family in St. Louis, he found himself watching all-too-familiar scenes play out just minutes from his home.
You can see the phrase scrawled on walls around the globe from Tahrir Square to Ferguson, seemingly anywhere people take to the streets: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” It was the creation of American jazz poet Gil Scott-Heron, whose biographer says he’d enjoy the term’s enduring use.