Editorial
We are Angry
While some of the racial profiling stories are as exaggerated as some of the Michael Brown death witness stories were, we must look at the circumstances. How does one explain Michael Brown’s body being on the street for a full 4 and half hours after he was gunned down? On the other hand, even if the jury was put in place 3 months before Michael Brown was shot dead, does it not stink that in a town that is 70 percent black, there are 9 white jurors and only 3 black ones? Is there a chance that if circumstances were different – like 9 black jurors and 3 white ones – Michael Brown’s killer would be facing justice? This disparity is exactly the same kind of difference you saw in the Ferguson, Missouri police force. A mostly white law and order unit polices the small suburb of mostly black people. The mayor is white and most arrests, traffic stops and everything else is, seemingly, meted against a mostly poor or lower middle class black group of people.
While President Obama gave what some felt was a rejoinder to the Michael Brown killing indictment decision, many people across the spectrum – this editorial board included – felt a sense of hopelessness. Obama, we felt, was not angry enough; outraged enough – even sensitive enough to this moment. There was a fierce urgency for him to espouse some of the rage many felt – and it did not matter that the cable networks were suggesting that even Obama’s soothing words could not quell the angst. And yet while no one can quell the fact that the United States has made significant progress – President Obama is testament to that – this Michael Brown thing makes many of us feel like we might as well be right back at the outskirts of the 1960s. Too many black people are senselessly gunned down by system and it does not matter that the majority of blacks die at the hands of other blacks in gangland violence. It is these senseless deaths by authorities that capture the heart of the matter. Trayvon Martin; John Crawford – the man who was shot in a Walmart while looking at a toy gun; and of recent, Tamir Rice, the 12 year old boy who was shot dead because he had a gun that turned out to be a toy gun. Like Prof. Michael Dyson pointed out, when blacks kill blacks, they go to jail. When police and authority figures kill blacks, they are exonerated. It is like they receive indemnification – they are guilty of killing people but this is beyond their control. What rubbish! Are the police not meant to protect and serve? Who are they protecting if not themselves? Who are they serving if not themselves?
On the conference call to discuss the repercussions of the Michael Brown indictment, one of us was very emphatic: Police should know better. They are trained to know better and they should not, under any circumstances, be trigger happy in ending the very life they are supposed to protect. Another one us was very angry simply because Michael Brown was unarmed. He did not deserve to die. Thus, unlike the Trayvon Martin incident, and unlike many of the countless protests following a senseless killing, it seems as though Michael Brown’s death and subsequent no-indictment has people are baying for blood – Darren Wilson’s or anyone else. Over 100 gunshots went off after news on the indictment broke. Conversations with various correspondents revealed that even if things would get worse as a result, some people were calling for the blood of a policeman: An eye for an eye, so to speak.
But whatever we say, whatever we do, will any of us ever be satiated? Revenge does not quench our thirst for hope. What are a few broken glasses in the face of a senseless death? What is a senseless death to people that do not think that the dead are less human than the killer? Is it ironical that President Obama cannot be angry in a moment of senseless death? It just feels like Michael Brown is all of us, and all of us are Michael Brown. We do not live in a post racial society. It does not matter that this whole scenario may have been expounded because of the media. Would things have been much less heightened by the fact that social media has all manner of rumors? Or is there a chance that we are all emotional because we have been misled by not having all the facts? That could be the heart of the matter. What we have, instead, is a combination of our past, our present and our future, but this is the dissonance that the grand jury in Missouri had to deal with. They may have known that Michael Brown died because he was black – but what evidence did they have at their disposal? How are they supposed to indict a man when the man has the law on his side? President Obama’s first words – somewhat tongue in cheek since he just almost extra judiciously gave illegal immigrants amnesty – were that the United States is a nation of laws. No time have these words made more sense. Unfortunately, although justice is balanced, the law is different – it is biased, it requires direction and contains bias. The law is the law – colored and interpreted by sides – the defense and the prosecution. And just like that, we are back at the beginning: Puzzled, Unhappy – Angry.
