Rare News Desk
When members of the St. Louis Rams gave the “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” signal on Sunday at their first home game since the Ferguson grand jury decision, the criticism came quick and heavy.
Videos by Rare
How dare they! Michael Brown was a thug! “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” is a lie!
Brown might have been a “thug.” Hands Up, Don’t Shoot might have never happened.
It doesn’t matter.
Police officers killing black men without any repercussions has been happening for a long time. Sometimes the police are justified in using deadly force. Sometimes they are not.
But no one really knows. Police officers are never held accountable. No one is ever indicted. No one is ever found guilty.
With Michael Brown, the idea that police brutality directed at black citizens is a widespread problem wasn’t clear to enough Americans, because the details of this particular situation weren’t very clear. Many sympathized with officer Darren Wilson.
With Eric Garner, it becomes a lot clearer.
Eric Garner was choked to death on a New York City sidewalk by police for allegedly selling illegal cigarettes. The entire episode was caught on video.
Whatever crime Eric Garner might have committed, no reasonable person believes he deserved to die for it.
We all heard repeatedly that Brown was a “thug,” as some sort of justification for his death. But as Rare’s James Antle observed, “Even if Brown wasn’t an angel, few of the crimes he was alleged to have committed–to say nothing of vague non-criminal offenses like ‘being a thug’–are not, and should not be, capital offenses.”
Many Americans—and particularly black Americans—were outraged by the failure to indict Darren Wilson because they saw it as just another example of a black man dying at the hands of police and the cops getting off scot-free.
Whether this was actually true was less important to many than the fact that it had happened… again.
How many times have black Americans heard why police won’t indict? How many times have the families of slain young black men, heard why their brother, son, father or friend was probably in the wrong and the police officer was in the right, based only on the perspective of law enforcement?
Even when police accounts and decisions are correct, you really can’t blame black citizens for being suspicious and even outraged (you can blame people for looting and committing violence, for which there is never any excuse).
According to one poll, 58 percent of white Americans approved of the Ferguson grand jury decision but only 9 percent of blacks did. Perception often is reality—and white and black Americans often have very different perceptions of these types of controversies.
Many have criticized the protesters in Ferguson and across the country for having an emotional reaction, and they did. It’s an emotional issue. It’s an issue that deeply affects the black community that not many see beyond that community.
For many, the Ferguson controversy was a way to hopefully change things.
Coming from that community, this is why members of the St. Louis Rams felt compelled to do what they did.
“My kids matter,” Rams player Kenny Britt wrote on his taped up wrists.
Britt’s kids do matter. Michael Brown mattered. Oscar Grant mattered. Cory Maye matters. John Crawford mattered. Tamir Rice mattered.
Eric Garner mattered. Black lives matter.
Hands Up, Don’t Shoot is an imperfect symbol for a tragic reality.
