By Dorothy Rowley
Special to the NNPA from The Washington Informer
Music legend Stevie Wonder says the mayor of Ferguson, Missouri, hasn’t fully grasped the racial unrest that has rocked the town since the fatal police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown last month.
Wonder, an outspoken proponent of racially equality who vowed to boycott the state of Florida after the George Zimmerman verdict, took Ferguson Mayor James Knowles to task for claiming there is no “racial divide” in the St. Louis suburb.
“I don’t know if the mayor has blinders on, but to say that he didn’t know that there was a racial or cultural problem in the city is unfortunate,” Wonder told The Associated Press earlier this week, adding that he approved of President Obama’s response to the protests, which occasionally turned violent as demonstrators clashed with city police.
Wonder made the comments while announcing his upcoming fall North American tour, which will include performances of new songs he said were partly inspired by recent world news.
“Obviously the good, the bad and the ugly, I’ve seen it all. I check out all of it,” he said. “I am always challenged [by] anything that’s negative to write something like… how can we take it from that wrong place to getting it back to the right place?
“Unfortunately we’re living in a time of disposable love and we’ve got to get it from that place to really valuing life, valuing love and valuing each other,” Wonder said.
Brown, 18, was shot six times on Aug. 9 by Darren Wilson, a white police officer. Authorities are investigating whether Brown charged at Wilson, giving the officer justification to fire his weapon.
Additional eyewitnesses have recently came forward, telling CNN that Brown only stumbled toward Wilson after being struck by gunshots fired while the officer was chasing him.