Analysis of the Michael Brown shooting and racial conflict

1. An outline of the underlying causes of the conflict presented in the texts

All of the texts deal with the reactions of the public and of the authorities after the shooting of African-American Michael Brown in August 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Since the circumstances of the shooting were ambiguous and concerns were raised about the way the police handled the issue, a lot of African-Americans started protesting against the police and against racist practices.

The first text is titled “there´s a Ferguson near you” and was written for USA Today by Jesse L. Jackson , who is an African-American civil rights activist and a Baptist minister. In the column Jackson explains why he thinks that the protests in Ferguson represent a much larger problem, which occurs all over the US.

Text number two is called “What White People Can Do About the Killing of Black Men in America”, and is a comment written by Paul Raushenbush, an American Baptist minister and executive religion editor, for The Huffington Post, an American news site. Paul Raushenbush focus on possible solutions to the conflict, which he thinks is an epidemic with black men as victims. He includes comments from pastor Reverend Lee, who present social media as part of problem and who focus on the Baptist Church’s role.