A meditation on our times, cast through a reconsideration of the
Justice Department’s investigation of the Ferguson Police
Department
In
August 2014, Michael Brown—a young, unarmed Black man—was shot to
death by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. What followed was a
period of protests and turmoil, culminating in an extensive report
that was filed by the Department of Justice detailing biased policing
and court practices in the city. It is a document that exposes the
racist policies and procedures that have become commonplace—from
disproportionate arrest rates, to flagrant violence directed at the
Black community. It is a report that remains as disheartening as it
is damning.
Now,
award-winning poet Nicole Sealey revisits the investigation in a book
that redacts the report, an act of erasure that reimagines the
original text as it strips it away. While the full document is
visible in the background—weighing heavily on the language Sealey
has preserved—it gives shape and disturbing context to what
remains.
Illuminating
what it means to live in this frightening age, and what it means to
bear witness, The Ferguson
Report: An Erasure is an
engrossing meditation on one of the most important texts of our time.