Have months of protest on Ferguson advanced the discussion on racial profiling?

GWEN IFILL:

Joining us now from Saint Louis is Cornell William Brooks, the national president and CEO of the NAACP, which has been monitoring the situation in Ferguson.

Welcome, Reverend Brooks.

You know, there's so much — been so much conversation over the years of the NAACP's existence about nonviolent protests. So, how do you advise or imagine that the local leaders, local activists, local residents of Ferguson tonight are bracing for this?

CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS, President, NAACP:

The local residents and protesters and families and certainly our NAACP branches in the community are bracing for this decision.

And we are in fact committed to nonviolent action. We are at a moment where we have to challenge — or rather channel anger into action, frustration into focus, and focus on seeking justice for a grieving family and also systemic reform for an outraged community.

The point being here is Michael Brown is only the latest tragedy in a series of tragedies. And we can't forget the importance of responding to this crisis, seeking individual justice, but really turning this tragedy into an end to racial profiling and racial and — and police misconduct. That's the challenge here.

GWEN IFILL:

But if the grand jury were to decide not to indict Darren Wilson, there are those who say that is a form of justice as well.

CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS:

Yes, there are those who say that, but my challenge here, and I think the challenge and the question the community has is, we have a teenager who meets a police officer with a gun, a badge and training.

The teenager ends up dead. The teenager was initially suspected of jaywalking. We have a major and fundamental challenge in the way we conduct policing in this community and in this country. That needs to change. And justice here is justice for family and justice for community. We need both in equal measure.

GWEN IFILL:

And there are those who say justice is also justice for law enforcement and the job they have ahead of them tonight. Is this a local discussion or a national discussion?

CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS:

It's a local discussion and a national discussion, but we need to keep this in mind.

When we consider the police and we consider the protesters, the responsibility for keeping the peace is asymmetrical. That is to say, the police officers have a responsibility for keeping the peace, for acting in such a way as to allow for constitutionally protected civil disobedience, and to allow these protesters and allow NAACP branches and members to do the work that they have taken upon themselves to do.

And that is really a right and responsibility of citizenship, and so the point being here is, we need peace across the breadth of the community, but peace in the context of a pursuit for justice. We have to have that.

GWEN IFILL:

On balance, there has been a lot of attention paid to what has happened in Ferguson. I think if any of us had expected in August that we would still be talking about this prior to Thanksgiving, we would have been surprised at that possibility.

On balance, has that been a good thing to have that conversation that is spread out over such a long amount of time or has it hurt the discussion?

CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS:

No, I think it's helped the discussion. When we think about these facts, one out of every three African-American men can expect, according to some studies, to spend time in prison.

One out of every four African-American men reports being treated unfairly or unjustly at the hands of the police in the last month, according to a Gallup poll. When African-American men are 21 times more likely to have their lives ended at the hands of the police, we have a major problem.

And so the point being here is we have a generation of young people who see the death of Mike Brown not as an individual incident of police brutality, but as a generational assault. And so the point being is we have got to talk about this as a nation. We, as people of conscience, as communities of conscience, have got to talk about this problem with an urgency, that is to say to bring in interracial profiling.

And one of the benefits of that is, when we have police departments that protect their communities by respecting them and by engaging them, it makes those communities safer, but it also ensures that police officers are, in fact, safer.

GWEN IFILL:

Reverend Cornell William Brooks, CEO and president of the NAACP, thank you for joining us.

CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS:

Thank you, Gwen.