Rare News Desk
Let me clarify. For the average person, I think knee-jerk reactions are understandable. Most people arrive at their conclusions about what happened between Darren Wilson and Michael Brown based on what they’ve seen in their own lives.
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The anger in the black community over grand jury’s Wilson decision cannot be separated from the experiences too many African Americans have had with law enforcement. Neither can the defenses of Wilson be separated from the white majority’s more positive experiences.
But not everybody is a busy news consumer, seeing the evidence extremely filtered if at all. Many of the most disturbing comments have come from people who are paid to analyze current events for a living.
Here are a few that bothered me the most.
1. Mike Brown wasn’t innocent. He robbed a convenience store, pushed the store owner around, smoked marijuana, was a thug, etc.
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.
If there was a real risk that Brown was going to beat Wilson to death or take his firearm, then that would have justified lethal force. Which brings us to the second item.
2. If Darren Wilson is scared of unarmed teenagers, he shouldn’t be a cop
This is as dumb as the argument that people should be summarily executed for being a “hoodlum.” Yet I heard versions of it from such tough guys as MSNBC’s Ed Schultz, who broadcasts from the safety of a studio with security guards.
I don’t know whether Wilson was justified in believing his life was in danger. Neither do most of the people making these comments. But the mere fact that one person has a gun and the other is unarmed does not entitle the latter to beat the former to death. Police officers do not carry weapons only to engage in shoot-outs with alleged perps. They carry weapons to protect themselves and the public in all situations where their lives may be in danger.
That’s not to say that police officers don’t ever abuse the power their weapons give them or that all shootings by law enforcement are justified. But whether a shooting is justified depends on the circumstances.
3. Police shootings are less important than black-on-black crime
It’s true: homicide is the leading cause of death for black males between the ages of 15 and 34.
The overwhelming majority of those homicides were committed by other blacks; 93 percent of murder victims are killed by someone of the same race.
But police officers are agents of the state. Their salaries are provided by taxpayers of all races. That gives added significance to any unjust shooting by a police officer.
These are the people charged with protecting the public. Communities of color in particular need to have an effective working relationship with the police because so many of their members are victims of crime. Finally, we should not ignore this country’s troubled history with race.
To some extent, this is also like arguing we shouldn’t care about Ebola because so many more Americans die of heart disease. Come to think of it, that was an argument people once made about AIDS. We can care about two separate social problems at once.
4. Rioting is good
Yes, this is an argument some people have actually made. Their case essentially comes down to two points. The first is that there is a long history of violence being employed on behalf of political causes. It’s not as if the Boston Tea Party or the American Revolution consisted of singing “We Shall Overcome.”
The second is that Ferguson’s black community is so disenfranchised they lack any other viable response. This seems like a much easier argument to make during Jim Crow than during Barack Obama’s presidency. Even stipulating that racism remains a problem that Obama’s election could not possibly have solved, it is nevertheless clear that blacks can work successfully within the political system.
An entire article could be written about the first argument, but suffice it to say the American Revolution did not primarily consist of colonists burning and permanently damaging their own cities.
It’s unlikely any good will come of Ferguson going up in smoke. It remains to be seen whether any good comes out of the national conversation it has also sparked.
