A White Guy ponders Ferguson
Back in 1995, when the OJ Simpson verdict was announced, I was at an industrial plant working on some equipment. They put the radio newscast on the plant speaker system, and all of us stopped to listen. The Simpson trial had dominated the news for some time, and it was hard to find anyone that didn’t have an opinion.
The reaction to the jury’s verdict exonerating Simpson for the murders was sharply divided along racial lines. What I saw, was that every black person there thought the jury made the correct decision, while every white thought he got away with murder.
Most of us work and interact regularly with people of other races, and specifically, blacks and whites. There is little evidence of racial animosity, and in fact, the interactions are almost always friendly and positive. In short, most Americans get along fairly well. And when there are conflicts, they’re rarely about race.
All of us know someone, or at least know about someone, who does not like people of other races. And, that holds true within all racial groups. But, overall, it’s not representative of American culture..
Many of us found black reaction to the Simpson verdict both surprising and disturbing. The argument given most often, was that policeman Mark Furman used a racial epithet at some point during the investigation, and that evidently sealed the deal with many blacks. They actually thought that the police planted the evidence to convict OJ Simpson. The real irony, is that prior to the trial, OJ Simpson was very popular with whites, possibly more so than with blacks.
Following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, the same sharply divided opinions were prevalent. When the story first hit the news, and it appeared that a policeman unjustifiably shot an unarmed black teenager, most whites, including me, thought an injustice had occurred.
But then the details began to emerge. Brown was not an innocent “gentle giant;” the video evidence shows him to be a bullying thug.
The grand jury details began to leak out, and the evidence supported the officers’ side of the story. Brown attacked Officer Wilson in his car, was wounded, ran away from the car, the policeman pursued, and then Brown charged the officer. That’s when Wilson fired the fatal shot. There were some eye witness accounts that told a different story, but the majority of them, all black, confirmed Officer Wilson’s version of the account.
The recent raising of a monument to memorialize Brown is beyond idiotic. I’m sure he had friends that will miss him; but there are undoubtedly those who will not. For instance, those he bullied and threatened in that community, as evidenced by more recent cell phone footage. Most of the people he bullied have black skin. He’s no one to memorialize.
There have been some that argued the policeman shouldn’t have pursued, but that would have been a dereliction of duty. The officer didn’t know what he was dealing with. A large threatening person, who had likely robbed a store, attacked him. Wilson could not allow him to remain at large. Policemen don’t get to sit in a car and wait for the cops to show up like the rest of us.
The death is certainly tragic, but the fault lies with Michael Brown, not the policeman. There doesn’t appear to be a clear racial component to this. The community the policeman was trying to protect is a primarily black community. Young, misguided thugs like Brown are a threat to that community, and the police are there to protect it.
The primary danger to young black men in black urban communities is not white cops, it’s other young black men. The argument has been made that black crime had nothing to do with the Ferguson incident, but that’s a specious argument. It had everything to do with it. Brown was stopped because he’d just robbed a store and threatened the store owner, and the officer was given his description. He wasn’t stopped because he was black. (Most people in that community are black; that’s an absurd charge)
Some have noted, and been attacked for it, that the primary indicator of how much violent crime an area will have is its racial makeup. Blacker areas, have higher violent crime rates. I realize that data of this sort can be applied unfairly. Most black people are not criminals, and do not harbor hatred against whites. But, if you’re going jump to a broad conclusion of white, and specifically white police, injustice based on Michael Brown; you must deal with these facts or forgo any semblance of intellectual honesty. Policemen, of all races, rush into black communities because they are called by the blacks living there to come and protect them. And, they’re called there often.
Comparing Brown to other young blacks killed by racially motivated whites in the past is beyond inane. We’re all aware of the horrible abuses of power by white police and others in the past, where young black men were targeted, and killed simply for being black. Whites find those actions as abhorrent as any black person. It’s a disservice to their memory and sacrifice to make such a comparison. If Brown hadn’t attacked Officer Wilson, he’d still be alive. That’s in sharp contrast to actual victims of racial violence.
The nation’s consciousness was forever changed by Martin Luther King and other civil rights activists, and rightly so. Any of us can understand the emotions that might trigger a default reaction among blacks to a white policeman shooting a black youth. However, at some point, reason has to overrule emotion.
Watching the mob of so called protestors in Ferguson, one would think they were calling for Officer Wilson to be lynched. Is that really what black Americans want?
The policeman did not commit a crime, Brown did. That’s the finding of the Grand Jury, and verified by the federal Justice Department. Could the policeman have reacted differently? Perhaps, but that’s always easy to say after the fact. In the roughly 90 seconds of intense stress where decisions had to be made in real time- not so easy.
I’ve heard black people tell about being “profiled” when they were innocently walking around in a store. I don’t doubt that happens, and all of us should make an effort not to judge others by their appearance. But, that’s not the whole story.
Blacks are roughly 13% of the population, but commit the majority of violent crimes. Isn’t it at least possible that’s the reason for the attention paid in a store? Back when the FBI was attempting to prosecute the KKK they didn’t go to a black college to find their suspects. They looked at southern whites. This was despite the fact that the vast majority of southern whites had no connection whatsoever to the KKK.
This analogy is almost perfect, because many whites that did not favor the KKK at all, were upset with what they felt were unjust and over the top actions by the Feds in these cases. Hence, they, in effect, let their emotions marry them to the horrors of the KKK, even though they did not support them in an intellectual sense at all.
Profiling has become such a dirty word, that its common sense usefulness has been ignored. If a policeman gets word that a suspect in a white Ford just robbed a convenience store; they do not start chasing blue Chevrolets. If they hear that the suspect is a red headed pale skinned white youth, they don’t stop and question young blacks. That’s real life, and I’m glad it is. It’s how you catch bad guys and protect society.
Far too many black youth are in prison; it’s a national shame. From what I read, in most states, the majority prison population is black. But before reacting emotionally, why is that so? Police injustice?
The argument is sometimes made that black youths get longer sentences than whites. I’m hardly a legal expert, but that may have more to do with the quality of lawyers they get in the way of public defenders. One of the lessons from the OJ Simpson trial may be that a “dream team” of expensive lawyers can work wonders for a defendant regardless of race. I strongly suspect that rich black kids get no longer sentences than rich white kids.
But why are black young men charged with felonies so often in the first place? Is it because, they commit them? The evidence says- “yes.” So, what’s the right course of action? Don’t arrest people that commit felonies, even against other poor blacks? That hardly seems right.
I think the only thing Eric Holder has ever said I agree with, is when he stated that it’s nearly impossible to have an honest discussion about race in America. The Ferguson event made that clear to many people.
The New York Times ran a piece that tried to explain why white people don’t “get” Ferguson. OK, fair enough. Explain it to us, But then explain how it’s somehow understandable to demand the head of a young officer that the evidence clearly shows was trying to do his job and contain an unruly and dangerous thug?
Explain how it’s fine to never place blame on the young blacks committing crimes or on the communities and families that breed them? Why should the American culture, which is the best place on earth to be a minority of any type, be subjected to criminal activity from a minority, and then blamed for trying to stop it? Blacks are not the only minority in America. Why is it that Asians hardly ever commit violent crimes? (and are just as rarely arrested)
The black people that I work with, go to church with, see in the grocery store, and vote next to, have no more in common with the inner city black culture than I do. They care about their children, raise them to be hard workers, see that they pay attention to their education, and teach moral values. Yet for some reason, they’re prodded and cajoled into believing that somehow, that’s their community, and they can’t speak against it unless willing to face ridicule from other blacks. I don’t “get” that.
Whites, on the contrary, feel no obligation to consider white criminals as their brothers to defend.
One of the adages you often hear in politics is to “follow the money.” There is a civil rights industry in the United States that produces a lot of money. Civil Rights figures like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are wealthy men because of it. And they’re not the only ones, there’s an entire segment of businesses and non profits that exist to serve the civil rights industry.
As Rahm Emanuel is famous for saying, “never waste a crisis.” That’s why the civil rights industry swings into full gear over incidents like Ferguson, and the facts don’t really matter very much. We saw the same thing with the Duke Lacrosse team. The headline was “white kids rape black girl,” and that’s all that was needed to mobilize a full civil rights industry ramp-up. A great deal of money was generated, and the fact that the incident never happened was immaterial. Except, of course, to the real victims, the white lacrosse players.
But facts DO matter, or at least they should to a civil society.
The problem in inner city urban areas is an age old problem. It’s what happens when God and morals are taken out of a society. The first result of that is the deterioration of the basic building block of human society- the family. And before anyone tries to argue that Brown came from a good family, just play the tape of his stepfather screaming “burn this b____ down” after the announcement of the Grand Jury findings. Good families don’t raise bullying thugs. Sorry, they just don’t.
Dark skin doesn’t make you violent. In parts of Europe, you have the exact same situation, only it’s whites that are involved in the broken culture that breeds fatherless young violent thugs. The problem is obviously deeper than skin color, and painting the problem in skin colors explains nothing,
Not to sound like a preacher, but Benjamin Watson with the New Orleans Saints had it right. The ultimate answer is the gospel of Jesus Christ. I found myself looking at the looters in Ferguson, and feeling disgusted. I feel the same way when I see the Black Lives Matter crowd, born out of the urban myth of police abuse in Ferguson, Missouri. Then I think about Jesus, when he looked at crowds and was filled with compassion because they were like lost sheep without a shepherd.
My wife and I were recently driving past a disheveled, scowling black youth with his pants below his rear, flashing what seemed to be gang signs at passing cars. I made a remark about how stupid he was, and my wife reminded me that this young man probably has no adult male in his life to teach him any better or to lead by example. My wife was right- which means, I was wrong.
But, loving people as Christ did doesn’t mean not telling the truth. That being, what happened in Ferguson is not indicative of widespread abuse of black people by whites. Furthermore, looting a liquor store is not a protest, or an appropriate response to anything. And, keeping a lie alive by forming a movement based on it does nothing positive. Those actions are symbolic of a sick heart writ large as a sick culture.
And that’s what the gospel changes. Nothing else will. It truly is our only hope.
Eddie Mayfield