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 modern time.
