In the wake of the Grand Jury decision to not indict police officer Darren Wilson for shooting unarmed Black youth Michael Brown, US punk band Anti-Flag said all proceeds from a compilation of protest songs, This Concerns Everyone released by its record label A-F Records, will go towards funding the Ferguson Legal Defense Fund.
Anti-Flag guitarist Justin Sane said of the jury decision: “Another unjust outcome from an unjust system. Jim Crowe didn’t die in the 1960s, it just took on a new form ...
“The US legal system is a microcosm of a wider society that discriminates against people who are not white, a society that is drowning in an epidemic of police violence against people of color.
“In incident after incident, excessive force and murder by American police is used as an on the job tool.
“The case of Michael Brown is not the exception, it is the rule. This is why people are angry. This is why people are burning police cars. This is why protestors in Chicago are chanting at mounted police, 'Get those animals off of those horses' …
“The judgement sheds light on the lack of justice in the legal system ― a system that is held up as a system of justice but is designed to hurt and oppress those who lack power in it and benefit those who have crafted it ...
“This isn’t just about Michael Brown … It’s about every single person who has been abused and murdered at the hands of a racist, out of control gang of thugs, who operate with impunity … thugs called The Police.”
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