1,000 signatures reached
To: Governor Mike Parson
Free Ferguson Activist Josh
Free Josh
Why is this important?
Pardon or commute Joshua Williams’ sentence...
Josh was charged with arson and was sentenced to 8 years at the Missouri Department of Corrections for trying to set fire to a QuikTrip Gas Station after hearing that a St. Louis County, Berkeley Missouri Police Officer shot and killed an unarmed male.
Yet, the QuikTrip was never set on fire, Josh pled guilty under the circumstances. Josh was reacting out of duress due to recent Police Violence that was affecting, and continues to affect, the mental health and well-being of people and communities.
Taking away this young man’s freedom because he has been mentally abused is wrong!!
The Atlanta Black Star speak more on African-Americans, Race Trauma and PTSD. "Race-based trauma isn’t just inclusive of racist acts, but also the feelings of hopelessness and helplessness one feels during and after the incidents. " https://atlantablackstar.com/2015/09/06/cant-breathe-african-americans-race-trauma-ptsd/
Robert T. Carter, Ph.D. wrote on this in a 2006 Psychiatric Times article: “Race-based traumatic stress injury can be a consequence of emotional pain that a person may feel after encounters with racism, which can be understood in terms of specific types of acts (as distinct types: racial harassment or hostility, racial discrimination or avoidance and/or discriminatory harassment, aversive hostility).