Black Man Thinkin'

There are two primary lies about events in Ferguson, MO, since August 9, 2014:

1. That Michael Brown’s death was an injustice, part of the increase in police brutality in the U.S., and

2. That the protests which have followed have anything to do with a search for justice.

To gain clarity regarding the first primary lie, it is useful to summarize events related to Brown’s death.

Sometime before 11:51AM on August 9th, surveillance cameras captured the following footage of a strong-arm robbery at a Ferguson, MO, convenience store:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHxXGvXQrno[/youtube]

Strong-Arm Robbery is 2nd Degree Robbery, and a felony, in the state of Missouri. Another man in the video, Dorian Johnson, confirmed, through his attorney, that he was present with Brown when the incident occurred, while attorneys for Brown’s family left-handedly acknowledged the incident while calling the video an irrelevant sideshow.

Officer Darren Wilson did not know of Brown’s robbery, nor was that why he happened upon Brown; however, the video, and the attorney admissions, demonstrate Michael Brown committed at least one felony on the day he died.

Brown family attorneys also acknowledged an altercation between Brown and Officer Wilson before the shooting.

That altercation involved Michael Brown assaulting Officer Wilson and seeking to gain control of the officer’s weapon. That is either first- or second-degree assault in Missouri; both of which are felonies. Trying to take Wilson’s gun put deadly force on the table as an appropriate response, at Officer Wilson’s discretion.

So, Brown committed two felonies before Wilson shot him; the second made his death a defensible outcome, not an injustice. Therefore, characterizing Michael Brown’s death as police brutality mocks legitimate instances of excessive force by law enforcement against blacks….which we are told is out of control

However, on that matter, a review of Justice Department data on police contact with, and police violence against, citizens shows:

• Police contacts with the public declined, more than 11%, from 2002 to 2008 (pg. 2, Table 1),
• Whites had at least 7 times more face-to-face police contacts than blacks; hispanics also had more contacts than blacks (pg. 5, Table 6), and
• More than twice as many whites either endured, or were threatened with, police force as blacks (pg. 12, Table 18).

Additionally, the incomplete data that indicates police kill 96 blacks annually also shows that number to be less than 1/4 of those killed by police. Does that correlate to police hunting blacks? Compared to the more than 2,400 blacks killed by blacks annually, the number who die at the hands of police definitely appears a lesser problem.

Which differs from saying it is no problem: consider the case of Eric Garner, killed by an illegal NYPD chokehold:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1ka4oKu1jo[/youtube]

There are no meaningful similarities between the Brown and Garner cases?

• Michael Brown committed crimes the day he died; Eric Garner did not,
• Police encountered Brown because he blocked traffic; police encountered Garner because he broke up a fight,
• Brown had a criminal juvenile record; Garner had police run-ins over untaxed cigarette sales,
• Brown assaulted a cop; several cops assaulted Garner, and
• Brown died in the role of attacker: Garner died, futilely telling his attackers he could not breathe.

Further, while it took 108 days and 3 autopsies to get a straight story on Brown’s death, it took only 7 days to rule Garner’s death a homicide, directly attributable to police. And while a St. Louis County grand jury has already decided in the complex and emotionally-charged Brown case, a New York City grand jury has yet to decide on charges in a case where the crime is on tape, and the medical examiner has ruled.

So, where was the demand for that officer’s arrest? For releasing his identity and address? Why the days of racial outrage and riots for a guy who attacked a cop, but only a leisurely stroll for a guy whom cops attacked?

There was no injustice in the case of Michael Brown; rather a lack of acceptance of a grand jury determination. In the case of Eric Garner, there is neither justice nor much of a reaction.

Unless blacks cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, the unequal response to cases that occur at roughly the same time is odd, especially when the more clear-cut excessive force case gets a relative ho-hum response…and especially when the numbers do not support that there is a massive rise in the number of blacks killed by police, but decrease in the number of face-to-face contacts instead.

Regarding the second lie…why are so many arrested protesters not even from Ferguson, MO, whether back in August, or more recently in November?

If the idea of the protests is to better things for blacks in Ferguson, then why did protesters ignore Natalie DuBose’s, “Just don’t burn my shop down, don’t destroy it,” pleas, regarding the storefront that was her sole income source? Did putting her out of business “set things right with Mike”? Or were they psychic, knowing that their destruction would result in more than $200,000 in donations to offset her losses?

Are they expecting something similar for the dozens of other businesses destroyed after the grand jury made its determination? Or for the dozen or more that were looted the day after Brown died? Somehow, it is doubtful that the “out-of-towners”, responsible for most of the damage in Ferguson, are really concerned about what is left.

The only ones likely to get any “justice” from this debacle will be the same ones who benefited after a similar incident – the decedent’s parents. When Sybrina Fulton copyrighted t-shirt slogans, regarding her slain son, Trayvon Martin, less than a month after his death attorney Benjamin Crump was already on the case. When Lesley McSpadden, Michael Brown’s mother, confronted Brown’s paternal grandmother, over the sale of t-shirts, and a comment over whether McSpadden had a copyright on her son’s name precipitated a violent attack, Benjamin Crump was on that case as well.

All other blacks are to accept that:

• Only sympathy for parents of dead blacks is justice,
• Destroying your community shows you care for it,
• Cops, who kill 1 black person for every 25 blacks kill, are the ones hunting young black men.

Of course, the problem is not that these outlandish things are said to black people; the problem is the number of blacks willing to accept them as true…

Somebody cue the Doobie Brothers…
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJe1iUuAW4M[/youtube]