Mike Brown was MURDERED by a Ferguson Cop.. Period.

18  year old unarmed black teen, Michael Brown, was shot and killed eight to ten times Saturday august 9^{th 2014} at 2pm in Ferguson, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis) by a Ferguson police officer. 

Immediately a social media frenzy ensued with a few people on the scene posting pictures and videos from the time Michaels body was left lying in the street (Michael Skolnik tweets, “Mike Brown’s body was left in the street for four hours before the police removed him. #Ferguson”) to videos of the “riots” that ensued during protests over the weekend. Sunday the chief of Ferguson police held a press conference stating that Brown had “physically assaulted” the officer in his vehicle, attempted to take his gun and then was shot while running away. 

This statement came a day after many eye witness statements such as Dorian Johnson who had been walking with Brown. Johnson said he was walking with Brown in the middle of the street when a police car pulled up. The officer told the teens to use the sidewalk, according to Johnson. After an exchange of words, the officer "shot, and once my friend felt that shot, he turned around and put his hands in the air, he started to get down and the officer still approached with his weapon drawn and fired several more shots."

This being corroborated by several others that stated they saw Brown with his hands up when he was shot several times, and that shots originated from inside the cop’s vehicle. Yet this officer is on paid administrative leave pending an investigation for... murder?

This is the third occasion in a month where a black man (Eric Garner, John Crawford) was killed at the hands of an officer. Each one taking paid or non-paid leaves while investigations ensue. Talk about stalling techniques. When someone kills a cop in front of people do they get the luxury of never being arrested and booked till an investigation ensues?

First… the cover ups.

Easy2Dress Racism?

Earlier this week I was scrolling my instagram feed when a picture posted by one of my favorite accounts, @Tuffmagazine, caught my eye. There was an attractive white man jumping rope in the middle of a boxing ring with a jersey inspired shirt reading... NIGGA 00. My first thought was “What the..?” This was blogger/model Mariano di Vaio in an Easy2Dress FW2014 campaign ad shot. Easy2Dress, an Italian based street wear brand that identifies themselves as creating “unconventional t-shirts & clothes”. But when does unconventional become disrespectful?

Despite the fact that many of Tuffmagazine and creator @akacharleswade followers sounded off in response to this coming to their attentions, but there were many people supporting the brand and model. Some saying that to Italians there is no negative connotation around the word, as if they are unaware of the origins of the word nigga. Though not all were saying that this made the concept and creation of this shirt okay, but that if you had no idea that a word was “bad” how would you know not to embrace it?