I can't hold it in any longer. There has to be an outlet for what's been bottled up too long. I've waited and waited to liberate the words. The waiting required some discipline and strength, but now that I have the facts, the need to withhold judgment is past. I kept an open mind, keeping suspicions carefully labeled as suspicions, and treating contrary opinions as possible. But now, there's no more I can learn than the truth, so I must engage and I must submit to it. It compels me to share, to address the fence-sitters in my audience to choose a side--the one the truth is on. The one I'm on.
There's a reason we have Grand Juries. It's a system that evolved over time. It doesn't guarantee that mistakes don't happen or that rigging the game doesn't occur. But it does offer some structural guarantee that a filter passes between law enforcement and the judicial system. It empowers ordinary citizens to review evidence and decide if charges are warranted. And I'm glad Missouri law makes those proceedings public and that the authorities were swift to publish them. Anyone interested in viewing the same facts placed before the only 12 people authorized to decide whether charges were appropriate on officer Darren Williams for his clean shoot of unarmed, but menacing Mike Brown--anyone interested in judging for themselves based on the facts--can do so. They are here. And they exonerate the officer. His killing was ruled self-defense and therefore lawful and un-prosecutable.
No his hands weren't up (two coroner's reports show entry and exit wounds don't support hands up). No he wasn't harmlessly standing still (blood trail 20 feet behind him shows he had a bleeding wound and had turned back and was advancing on the officer in a linebacker-esque charge). No he wasn't some innocent kid whose only crime was jaywalking (this 18 year old 6'5" 275+ lb. bruiser had strong-arm robbed a store earlier in the day, had marijuana in his bloodstream, and had assaulted the officer in question, and grabbed for the latter's gun). The facts are the facts are the facts. Do I wish he died? No. But the shoot was clean, and we can't take back what justifiable action the officer took. It's tragic that the death occurred not because the officer should have chosen a different course of defensive actions, but because this young man might otherwise have repented and become a productive member of society.
But beyond the facts, there is a great, growing, and increasingly mediatized angst that must be properly contextualized and analyzed so as to eradicate it through reason, truth, and compassion. And I'm afraid that I don't know how to bring peace to this angst unless those protesting Mike Brown's death and what they call systematic police mistreatment of Blacks take off their ideological blinders for themselves. If you truly want Justice--for Mike Brown, for Trayvon Martin, for whoever--then you have to do it honestly. You have to know what justice is. You can't redefine the term, then redefine the associate terms so that it matches your predetermined idea of what the verdict should be. You can't puff yourself up to place yourself in judgment when the decision doesn't rightly belong to you. You can't listen willy nilly to commentators who themselves weren't there, who aren't in full possession of all the facts, and who have every bit as much a right to decide the officer's fate as you do--none. I don't care how expert they claim to be, only 12 people had all the facts and all the responsibility to judge whether charges should be brought. And we limit it to 12 because it more or less gives us a minimum number of peers whose personal self-interests are likely to cancel each other out and a limited number of fellow community members so that independent thinking is more likely and mob mentality is less so.
What I'm afraid the protesters will never learn is that their anger, outrage, and aggression is not righteous, as they see it, but is ignorant, baseless, profoundly undemocratic, and ultimately counterproductive.
There are two blogosphere reactions I would like to address here, each for the disagreements I have with them
The first hails from Matt Walsh, who hits the nail right on the head for the most part. In summary, he artfully details the falseness of the charges against the officer in question, the thuggishness of the protesters' response, the fecklessness of the media feeding the lies and fomenting the revolt, and the predictable pandering of the politicians throwing an innocent man under the public bus for profit in the polls. Matt systematically lays bare the hypocrisy behind every facet of the protester's claims to seek justice while rejecting it out of hand in favor of its opposite: prejudice.
Where Matt misses the mark is that he fails to connect it symbolically to the broader leftist narrative from the Southern Strategy, through Rigoberta Menchu, through Katrina's parking lot full of washed out school buses, through Trayvon Martin. And he could have extended his argument so easily. The reason protesters seize upon cases like this is not and never has been about the facts. The facts are uninteresting except the ones cherry-picked to advance the broader ideological narrative that there is a system of oppression perpetrated by whites in power to keep Blacks in poverty and in prison--to take away their choices until the only ones left are understandable bad ones which they deserve to be punished for which further justifies the oppression. The problem with Matt's thinking isn't his thinking, it's that he fails to deal with the powerful symbolism Brown's case implies whether or not it turns out to be true. The left can't see straight or be honest if it wanted to on this, because its entire craft would be undone if it waited for the facts first. It's much more politically and socially galvanizing as an emotional argument to draw out the pride of the underdogs who want to be more than they are, and have more than they have to sell them the story that their wishes can come true, and have been kept from them by forces beyond their control. You can remove the blame, the self-judgment, and the responsibility from any group if you can sell them the idea that it's a system repressing them. And if it's an unjust system manipulated for the profit of a tiny minority, then the majority is justified in taking up a revolt against it. It's especially handy for leaders well placed to promote the solutions that this story implies: let us, the experts--the people that truly care about you and your people--take care of you with increased taxes on the others, and increased government programs to benefit you. The outrage of these protesters is genuine even if the story is wrong because pride is more powerful a motivator than truth--at least in the immediate and short term. They hold up Brown as a symbol of oppression even if he's objectively not because the flattery that their problems aren't their fault provides a convenient illusion to cover their continued misuse of their own freedoms. That's what pride does: it fools you into using your agency to undermine your own agency--it gives immoral acts cover; it pretends justification for an abuse; it falsely claims you need to break a rule in order to get out from under it; it tells you licentiousness is freedom; it says "You know better than God what your fair circumstances and challenges should be"--in short, it lies.
Dennis Prager outlines a great argument for the more basic nature of the problem of protests in Ferguson when he claims there's not a racial divide there so much as there is a moral one.
The other piece I'd like to array my disagreement with is from former attorney turned "racial equality" activist Janee Woods, whose article turned up on my Facebook today (I believe in a diversity of friends, so many of mine support her opinions). She outlines 12 Things White People Can Do Now Because Ferguson. As a white academic whose work and livelihood depends on expert and informed exposing of true racism, and promoting racial and intercultural understanding and harmony, I only find myself utterly opposed to only 10 of them.
1. Learn about the racialized history of Ferguson and how it reflects the racialized history of America.
Janee may know a string of facts concerning the history of race relations in America, but she understands very little of it if she thinks Ferguson any but the most superficial connections tot he Civil Rights movement. There were instances of civil unrest that spilled over into the kind of looting and rioting we're seeing in Ferguson, and race riots in Watts and Detroit, for example, but the movement's core idea was something quite different, and won allies over because of this difference. Martin Luther King was basically saying "Blacks deserve the same freedom of opportunity and the federal government must protect us right now as it always should have from unconstitutional state and local laws which prevent us from having an equal footing". Ferguson protesters are basically saying "Blacks deserve exemption from laws and Black communities are right to demand the sacrifice of an innocent white policeman's freedom from time to time to appease us because of oppression from our history."
2. Reject the “he was a good kid” narrative and lift up the “black lives matter” narrative.
Does Janee and do my former colleagues and liberal friends honestly believe that Black lives do not matter to their political opponents? To the officer in question? Of course Black lives matter, as do all lives. My conservative friends will actually go even further than my liberal ones on that point, because they'll even fight to protect the unborn Black lives that are disproportionately discarded for the convenience of the living. But I digress...On point, how is that even a question? Seriously. Do you honestly believe white officers go out of their way to stop Black jaywalkers in order to execute them in broad daylight in front of witnesses, with no regard to consequences because Black lives are somehow worthless in their minds? If their lives didn't matter, officers would abandon the streets they lived in, not patrol them. Because their lives do matter, a Grand Jury was convened just as it would have for any homicide. Black lives have intrinsic worth, and infinite potential, so the tragedy of Mike Brown is that he was wasting his, not that he was Black and had the misfortune of being shot by a white cop.
3. Use words that speak the truth about the disempowerment, oppression, disinvestment and racism that are rampant in our communities.
Sorry Janee, but looting and rioting is what's going on in Ferguson. In "honor" of Mike Brown, the store from which he stole his infamous cigarillos was trashed and pillaged. But even then, Walsh has it right: it doesn't matter if some of the protests are peaceful, they're all based on a lie. Listen more to the Mia Loves and Ben Carsons of the Black community and less to the Al Sharptons and you'll see that the way to rise out of disempowerment, oppression, disinvestment, and racism--all of which can have real-world impact even if ultimately imaginary--is to stop allowing others to define you, to get educated, to get married and stay married, to have kids only after marriage, and to make caring families the cornerstone of caring communities. None of the ways of escaping from poverty, oppression, and violence have any basis in race, so we should speak words of truth that the problems aren't based in race either. We should especially stop giving power to politicians who take away our freedoms under the guise of solving our problems for us, or providing solutions we've been assigned by virtue of our skin color.
4. Understand the modern forms of race oppression and slavery and how they are intertwined with policing, the courts and the prison industrial complex.
Statistics on the proportion of white to Black incarceration rates are not instructive without the accompanying context of the proportion of white and Black crime rates as a bare minimum for fair discussion. Incarceration rates are blunt instruments for measuring behaviors in a community as if there were a baseline for the behaviors. A loaded term like "prison industrial complex" doesn't suggest fair-minded evaluation, but let's go there: do you understand the first thing about slavery? Do you have any clue how hard it was to be a Black in the antebellum South? How could you honestly compare ownership of a human being and forced labor under threat of life and limb to the proper punitive exercise of reducing freedoms as a penalty for behaviors the community must deem intolerable under pain of dissolving the very underpinnings of order and freedom?
5. Examine the interplay between poverty and racial equity.
Okay, let's go there: but first examine poverty on its own as if it were not connected to anything inherently racial. Does that analysis seem to explain all the phenomena? Let me affirm to you, as a shortcut, that it does. So race isn't a salient variable. Look, it's possible for Blacks to perceive an oppression that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy--just as it's possible for other races to feel like they can't break free from the stigmas that their history has burdened them with. The brilliance of America is that liberty can trump tradition, and we're diverse enough that it historically has. Moving on...
6. Diversify your media.
I would totally agree with this one if it weren't a twisting of the very principle it's attempting to trigger. Let me modify it slightly: get informed from a variety of sources but always with critical evaluation of the sources tehmselves. And I'm sorry, Ms. Woods, but Colorlines, the Root, and This Week in Blackness don't actually count as "diverse" media, unless you're being completely morally relativistic as to their objectivity. Critically evaluating sources means there's some places you don't go, just in the name of diversity, because it's the truth that should matter, not the color of the author. Reading for differing viewpoints and perspectives is a wonderful idea, but there's a huge difference between entertaining principled opponents of your argument, and entertaining propaganda.
7. Adhere to the philosophy of nonviolence as you resist racism and oppression.
100% in agreement.
8. Find support from fellow white allies.
This idea that there is a single cause behind which all Blacks can rally (or insert your identity politics group here), with allies and advocates from outside the group is really very counterproductive. It stifles the individuality within the Black community, and divides the non-Black world into various degrees of helper in a special interest versus various degrees of impediment to "progress". How about letting individuals and communities decide for themselves how they want to define themselves and let outsiders be individuals and communities too? How about we just enjoy our diversity how it is, instead of having to adopt your issues if we want to be friends? Do you know where else the language of "ally" is used? Hint: it's not peace.
9. If you are a person of faith, look to your scriptures or holy texts for guidance.
I am a person of faith. And I love this advice. The Bible is where I first learned that all humankind was created equal--not in result, but in opportunity--and that laws were God's way of showing us He loved us enough to tell us when our behaviors would lead us away from peace and happiness. I learned of a Final Judgment day, and of a process of repentance made possible by a Savior who satisfied the demands of justice for us all, thereby enabling mercy and justice to coexist and offer us the chance for forgiveness. I learned that we've all sinned, and all need to be patient and loving with our fellow human beings because we may struggle with different sins, but we all struggle. Also relevant to this case is the idea that we should render to Caesar that which is Caesar's, and that robbery, lying, and coveting are wrong.
10. Don’t be afraid to be unpopular.
That's what I'm doing right now. With virtually all the media on the side of "understanding" the protesters, I'm afraid the courageous position is the one on the side of the Grand Jury.
11. Be proactive in your own community.
Do be proactive. But swallowing whole the concept of white guilt, or blame America, or showing propaganda "documentaries" and calling for representatives to discuss racial problems is probably going to prove more divisive than inclusive, more one-sided than dialogue-promoting, and more inflammatory than resolution-oriented. Besides the fact that you'd only attract as an audience the choir that you need not preach to, the problems of race already have a clear solution that only needs to be practiced by all sides involved: judge by the content of character, not the color of skin.
12. Don’t give up.
Here again 100% agreement. Do I pretend that there's no racism in America? Of course not. Do I pretend that institutions and systems have no traditions of unfairness that are still in the process of undoing? Of course not. Do I pretend that all race issues would just go away if we stopped making such a big deal of them in the media? Of course not. Instead, what I'm trying to point out is that there are so many unfair biases in the base assumptions of people who sympathize with Ferguson protesters that almost none of their "solutions" should be accepted and would be counterproductive if accepted. When you compare apples to apples, and ideas to ideas, America has always had in its founding conceptions the key to the overcoming of slavery and to the full acceptance of brothers and sisters of all races, nations, creeds, and tongues for their equal and infinite potential. Can perceptions of oppression stunt one's fulfillment of that potential? Obviously, and understandably. However, the potential itself remains, and the best way to approach it is to set a goal to achieve it, and plan the steps to overcoming obstacles to it. Successful happy lives are possible for people of every color and background in the USA.
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