Tuesday, November 25, 2014
A Ferguson Post Mortem
In the months since the Ferguson incident, I have followed the news accounts and commentary - but assiduously avoided expressing a viewpoint on the subject until now. Bad news travels faster than the speed of light – especially sensationalized news or inflammatory news whose motive is to bring out the pitchfork brigade. So I have adopted this attitude: Read but refrain from commentary until all facts are known.
Within the first weeks after the Ferguson incident, we did learn that the black Community had been harassed for years by local police – with numerous documented abuses ranging from speed traps to racial profiling. Add political under-representation, and you have community with little or no voice in their own affairs. We need not determine the guilt or innocence of subject officer or subject victim to understand community resentments that had been smoldering for years.
Furthermore, we need not determine the guilt or innocence of anyone to know that some citizens are marginalized and treated with callous disregard or even with depraved indifference compared with citizens in other communities. For me, the Ferguson story is not about a specific incident but about pent up rage far removed from the spark that ignited it.
Virtually every week, there are reports of law enforcement officers all too often making tragic mistakes. As recently as yesterday, a 12-year old boy was killed in Cleveland for carrying a toy gun on a playground. A chokehold - banned under official police policy – caused the death of a Staten Island man. A swat team mistakenly shot a 911 caller during a manhunt. Innocent lives lost due to momentary lapses of forethought and self-restraint. We read accounts of citizens living under siege - not attributable to crime - but attributable to an overbearing, "over-militarized" police force acting as an army of occupation. Clearly, a review of law enforcement procedures is long overdue.
These days, the default condition – on the part of police officers, the news media, and the general public - is to “shoot first, ask questions later.” It appears this national tendency to react in an instant without forethought pervades every corner of society and runs counter to the priorities of law and common sense. This is not merely a Ferguson problem but a national problem.
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And the voice said unto me "if A = B then -A = -B" and I no longer saw as through a glass snarkly, but saw clearly that if A hates B or B hates A it's still bigotry. The heat is the same no matter which way the current flows and a lynch mob is a lynch mob and a kiss is still a kiss as time goes by.
ReplyDeleteBut anyway, it's small comfort when you're on the scaffold and the crowd is screaming bloody murder to think that someone of the same color needs to be punished regardless of actual guilt. In fact much of the crowd is screaming, not about whether the Grand Jury did a good job, but whether the accused had the right, being a white cop, to due process at all. The signs I saw demanded that he be found guilty in any manner possible. At this point I'm ready to deny to anyone who asks that I'm an American or a Liberal. The Cause isn't about justice any more, it's just about the cause. The abyss has looked into us and we blinked first lacking the courage to admit that being wronged doesn't make you right. To err is human; to lie, distort, misrepresent, to hate, to cheat to delude and be deluded -- all that is human too and more.
It's about this cop, this shooting and oh yes, about due process and a fair trial, about evidence and witnesses, it's not about anything else, if you ask me.
Watching the St Louis circus last night, I saw people burning the property of innocent people, others down on their knees with hands up mouthing "don't shoot." St Michael the Child may have said that, but Michael Brown did not. He physically attacked a cop - twice and in front of witnesses. Those that said otherwise either recanted, left town or admitted they weren't there. If we self-styled, justice loving Liberals think that somehow truth doesn't matter, that innocence is no excuse and inherited guilt so unforgivable and universal that any punishment is always deserved, it's time to be honest and admit to being bigots.
I don't know whether police brutality is getting worse or better or about the same. I've heard a lot of stories. I know it's bad. I know hanging the wrong guy doesn't help and I know that people and parties I used to think had some connection to justice are just mobs and liars and looters and arsonists using the rhetoric of heroes to smear their memory.
I'm seeing article after article trying to explain why facts don't matter and all I'm convinced of is that it's time to admit I've been a fool all my life for listening to such people. The facts do matter -- it's my country that doesn't.
"These days, the default condition – on the part of police officers, the news media, and the general public - is to “shoot first, ask questions later.” It appears this national tendency to react in an instant without forethought pervades every corner of society and runs counter to the priorities of law and common sense. This is not merely a Ferguson problem but a national problem."
ReplyDeleteI have to remark about this and in agreement. What I don't understand is the way we ignore the guy shot in his mother's driveway for reaching in his car for a pack of cigarettes, the old man shot getting out of his car whose cane looked like a gun, the guy at a gas station reaching inside to get his wallet and getting a fusillade instead the driver whose foot slips off the brake while the cop stands next to the car being shot for trying to run down an officer. A girl shot while sleeping in her own car! I remember them all but I may be the only one. And so often the shootee is hit scores of times. these things fade away. Is it because nobody is promoting them?
Why are the cops so afraid? Are they trained to do this or not trained not to do this? I had a cop tell me that I should always do as he does -- shot to kill because if he lives you'll be in court the rest of your life. Why am I so afraid?
And why are we all so quick to judge and condemn and see someone as an enemy -- worse why so unwilling to change our minds when shown to be wrong? Why do we simply become delusional rather than recognize error?
Why do we whine about being rushed to judgement while demanding someone else be railroaded or lynched?
But you're so right, we're in fear all the time. Is it because someone likes it that way?
We live in a land of fear and it's at total odds with facts. Is there someone behind this huge fear industry? I fear there is.
Do we see things as they are or as we are? All these questions might drive some to study psychology -- others to descend beneath the sea. Any room in that garden?
There is always a reason. Fear. Orders. Duty. There is always a reason after it happens. There is always a reason because we want there to be a reason.
ReplyDeleteThere is never a reason to "burn it down for Michael Brown" or anything like one.
DeleteIt's not about justice, it's about robbery, assault and arson. Oh how I love humans, we burn down our homes if the wrong football team wins and often if our own team wins.
I saw Anderson Cooper talking to someone today - someone explaining that it was because the cop lived in a white neighborhood that he thought Ferguson was hostile, not because the robbery and aggravated assault he was faced with. Guy sounded intelligent too, but some racist apologists might be, I guess.
If we can excuse taking guns to a "peaceful demonstration" ( it's OK when WE do it!) and excuse looting liquor stores for justice, and excuse burning out the stores so you can't feed your kids, what is there that we won't excuse in the name of justice? Or is it just cowardice that makes us go along with it? What kind of justice and equal protection under the law -- what kind of noble "ism" excuses robbing people and assaulting an officer?
Hell no, innocence is no excuse and evidence is no argument and assault and battery is almost like flattery -- and it's only racism when you do it, Mr. Whiteguy.
So is that a tear in Dr. King's granite eye? Maybe it's just raining.
Of course, I don't truly understand. I think maybe it's just a deeper level of frustration that I can't possibly understand. But by sheer coincidence and perhaps good luck, a few weeks ago I had the good fortune of watching Spike Lee's 1989 epic, "Doing the Right Thing." Granted, Radio Raheem is a far more lovable victim than is Michael Brown.
DeleteFor those of you who don't remember it, don't bother with IMdB and wikipedia. Just watch it. It's the story of an Italian man by the name of Sal, played by Danny Aiello, who lives in a different part of town, but has run a successful pizzeria for at least twenty years in a community within Bedford-Stuyvesant, a predominantly black and poor neighborhood. His restaurant is a local favorite. It is a central meeting place and a provider of nutrition and sustenance for the mostly young black people who patronize it. Spike Lee, in his most famous role, portrays Mookie, a young man with a job delivering pizzas. He still lives with his sister, but he does make money. One of the restaurant owner's sons hates the black people that patronize the pizzeria, the other is a friend of Mookie. The father is a fair-minded man, but can become upset with his clientele when they begin to step on his rights as the owner of the establishment. Still, his love for the young people is apparent. One of the young patrons, Buggin' Out, complains that there are no famous black people with portraits on the wall, only pictures of famous Italian-Americans like Frank Sinatra. Sal tells the kid, "When you get your own place, you can put whoever you want up on the walls." The character who sets up all of the conflict is a huge man with the biggest African briefcase on the block by the name of Radio Raheem. The box runs on something like sixteen D-cells. The Puerto Rican guys have to acknowledge his greater wattage and prowess and quite good-naturedly concede defeat when he walks through their neighborhood. The most telling moment of the entire movie is when Radio Raheem proudly shows off his matching set of brass knuckles, or jewelry, if you like, to Mookie. The one on the right hand spells out the word, "Love" on his four digits. The one on his left hand spells "Hate." He explains the dichotomy with great conviction to Mookie. It becomes a central morality lesson to the tale.
Long story short. It is the second time that he has walked into Sal's Pizzeria playing his boom box way too loud. The first time, he obeyed Sal and turned it off in order to get some pizza. The second time, he is with his friend Buggin' Out who is organizing the boycott of Sal's Pizzeria. Radio Raheem refuses to turn off his music and Sal completely destroys the boom box with a baseball bat that he keeps around to threaten those who would get out of line at his place.
Sal and Radio Raheem get into a knock down drag out fight. Before Raheem can kill Sal, bystanders separate the two men and the cops arrive quickly on the scene. As four or more police officers attempt to control Raheem, the contest is quickly lost. Soon, just about everybody on the scene realizes that the cops have killed Raheem with a choke hold.
The weird thing is that Mookie, a sympathetic character, very matter-of-factly goes over and grabs a steel trash can. He throws it through the front window of Sal's place. Then the riot starts. A fire, looting, the whole nine yards just like we have seen it so many fucking times before. Trash, destruction and devastation all up and down the entire block. Just like Rodney King and the Simi Valley jury. Just like Ferguson must look like this morning. Happy Thanksgiving everybody.
I don't fucking understand it. But it happens. This was Spike Lee's most intimate confession and yet a morality play all in the same film. I cried my fucking eyes out.
Almost one year ago (December 12, 2013), there was another news story that captured national attention:
ReplyDeleteThe Affluenza Defense:
A 16-year old teen, Ethan Couch, was the drunk driver in a fatal car accident that killed four (4) people. The boy did not receive the maximum 20-year prison sentence sought by the prosecutor. Instead, the boy received 10 years probation based on an “affluenza defense” - plus a short stay in a posh rehab center.
Here are the facts of the case: “Authorities said the teen and friends were seen on surveillance video stealing two cases of beer from a store. He had seven passengers in his Ford F-350, was speeding and had a blood-alcohol level three times the legal limit, according to trial testimony. His truck slammed into the four pedestrians, killing Brian Jennings, 43, Breanna Mitchell, 24, Shelby Boyles, 21, and her mother, Hollie Boyles, 52.”
The term, ‘affluenza,’ describes a condition in which the children of rich families are irresponsible, dabble in alcohol or drugs, and suffer from an impaired sense of right and wrong due to their entitlement and privilege. The more simplified term is “spoiled brat.”
Is there a similar defense for poor black kids living in inner cities? A defense that takes into account the harsh conditions of growing up in violent neighborhoods, raised by a single mother, and surrounded by crack addicts, drug dealers, and criminal gangs? Would a judge make allowances for how these kids are raised?
Hardly! There is a double standard depending upon whether you are rich and poor. A white kid steals two cases of beer; a black kid steals a box of cigars. The white kid, driving while intoxicated, kills four people and serves a posh rehab sentence but no jail time; unarmed black kids are shot dead on the street, walking through the wrong neighborhoods, in a stairwell, on a playground.
This Apartheid is neither imaginary nor invisible.
That "affuenza" thing is hardly a usable statistic and the civil case awarded $2 million to the victims. More useful to them than a jail sentence. The perp was eventually incarcerated, BTW. Sorry, "burn it down for Michael Brown" isn't going to change anything but to make it all much much worse and I think the Determinism excuse is sort of the same kind of silliness as the Affluenza outrage. All it says is that a good lawyer costs money that most of us don't have.
ReplyDeleteMichael Brown wasn't the victim of an unsympathetic judge or racist witnesses. We don't get to insinuate "racist cop" about someone pinned in his seat by a giant beating him in the face and grabbing his gun. He wasn't given a harsh sentence for robbing a store or for DUI. He wasn't gunned down while walking down the street eating Skittles. Violent assault and attempted aggravated assault on a police officer indicates more than an upbringing in a crime ridden neighborhood. 6'4" and nearly 300 pound 18 year old males are men, not "children" Old enough to vote and old enough to take responsibility and old enough to know better. I'm just not good enough at Denial that I can explain this in the customary and palliative terms.
Some parts of this Schauspiel might fit into the same frame they tried to fit the Trayvon Martin case into, but even Procrustes couldn't trim and stretch all the bits and pieces of this shambles into a single collage. Notice how the first pictures other than the security camera was him in scholar's robes? These days that's almost a guarantee that someone has done something horrible.
But are we missing the point? Where is the public outcry when an ordinary black citizen gets shot in his mother's driveway for reaching into his car for cigarettes? When a man gets stopped for no seat belt and is shot multiple times? Gets blown to bits handing over his wallet. . . .? Who starts fires when a black man is hunted down and murdered for sport -- who goes out on the streets of half the cities in the country with bullhorns and signs for any of the countless acts that are truly indefensible? This year a man was shot and killed three miles from here by a cop who claimed he would have been run over otherwise. Who is burning their own neighborhood for him? Forgive my cynicism, but this canned outrage stinks like catfood. Who cares how many decent and dedicated people will be ruined so that St Michael the immaculate can ascend into heaven? How many former sympathizers will get sick of being accused of denialism for confronting the denialists and head for the border?
ReplyDeleteForgive me, but I think I see some choreography here. I see something old and ugly trying to bring us back to the 1960's when racism was the law and you didn't have to manufacture situations to make your mark as a freedom fighter. Is it coincidence that there was a spurt of "white people are denying racism" articles recently? I've never met a white man who denies racism. I've met hordes of white or whitish people being accused of being racists for not following the party line though, for not pretending Brown was an innocent kid begging for his life. I'm meeting many more people tired of being manipulated.
What's gonna happen now? There's going to be a line at the neighborhood gun store. Rightly or wrongly people are going to worry that the police will be afraid to protect them or their property. The price of ammunition will spike again. There will be fewer businesses black people can run in their own neighborhoods. People will complain that they can't get insurance or groceries and blame it on red lining. More good people will decide police work is not for them. More people will move out of Clayton and University City and those neighborhoods will decline and crime and racismwill rise.
CNN's profits will rise, Americans will be all the more ignorant of the things about to engulf them. More Law-N-order Republicans elected, more racist sheriffs and Al Sharpton will have another season in the sun.
Sound bitter? Does Alum make your mouth pucker? I'm so bitter, I'd already be in Dominica if the Treasury Department and their new FATCA requirements didn't make it impossible because I no longer believe in America or its future as once I did.. Reality is a manufactured product and I'm tempted to go natural.
ok. I believe in brevity these days.....what rarely seems to focus in all this discussion.....is guns, NRA....! We are told we need guns ot protect 'US' from the bad guys....and, without rules of ownership...anyone gets a gun, including bad guys. Hence...'WE' are starting to believe everyone has a gun. That BELIEF IS SHARED BY THE POLICE..... and now WE all believe the cops will shoot us because WE all have guns.....so...we now need to buy more guns to protect us from bad buys,,,,and cops...and the paper boy...et al. ya know what???? I am sick of all this shit.....I really am....not in an angry way....just sad. Maybe when we all get GOOD AND SAD....oh, shit, fuck it....beer time.
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to know is... does anyone make a special Thanksgiving Turkey brew that goes especially well with cranberries, mince meat pie, and crotchety old folks?
DeleteAnd yes I am fully aware of the Pumpkin Ale.
Allow me to recommend one of the fine Pale Ales from California.
DeleteStone IPA
Racer 99
Lagunitas
Sierra Nevada
Ballast Point
You'll be cheering when the other team makes a touchdown!
:)
Happy Turkey Day to all! I made eight pies!
FJ....and...you can never go wrong with NorthCoast Brewing....Acme, Red Seal or Old Rasputin....wonderfully available in Wisco!
DeleteRN....can never go wrong with a decent pale ale. Too bad you cannot get your hands on Belgian Red...a Cherry Lambic only made/sold in Wisconsin. Not cheap....but one of the better dessert beers I have ever had.......
Deletehttp://www.newglarusbrewing.com/index.cfm/beers/ourbeers/beer/wisconsin-belgian-red
have a good holiday n doan get too grouchy....hehehe
Harpoon IPA and Sam Adam Rebel IPA are my two staples.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys for the suggestions!
Wah? Me grouchy? Nevah! ;-)
GRINS!!! LOve IPAs......they make me Hoppy!
ReplyDelete