The horrors of slavery are almost unimaginable to us today. Later, when slavery was abolished after the Civil War, blacks had to endure ingrained racial prejudice, Jim Crow laws, lynchings, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, and segregation.
After World War II, when the Civil Rights movement began to really build up some steam, the struggle between black and white America reached a fever pitch. I was a goofy white grade-school kid in the 1960s, and I vividly remember the TV news coverage of the peaceful Civil Rights marches in the South, and the often violent push-back from white police departments.
Black Americans have a painful history with the white power structure. The distrust built up after centuries of abuse and mistreatment is hard to get past. I get that.
Even today, racism still rears it's ugly head much too often. I have a black friend who was seriously hassled last year while traveling through French Lick, Indiana. I'll spare you the details, but the cops gave him a really hard time, and ended up impounding his car, for totally bogus reasons. Had he been white, none of what happened to him would have happened.
This is just another example of the kind of "slow drip" soft racism that keeps black resentment simmering towards American society. I get that, too.
Yet I have seen our society make major strides in moving past the animosity. In many areas, there has been a healing of the rifts between black and white America.
I have seen tremendous improvement in racial relations since my childhood in the 60s. Thanks largely to the work of the Civil Rights leaders back then, many Americans of the previous generation have been shamed into abandoning racial prejudices. The younger generations have grown up without the ingrained racial attitudes of the past, and for many of them, race is not even an issue on their radar. Slowly but surely, we are moving beyond our shameful past.
But the past is still too recent, the wounds are still too fresh, and there is still too much residual bigotry festering below the surface to allow America to complete the healing process that began in the 1960s. Instinctively, many black Americans simply do not trust a predominantly white criminal justice system.
So we have events like the madness in Ferguson, Missouri.
Black America is understandably hyper-sensitive to any hint of abusive police power. So when the news broke that Darren Wilson, a white police officer, shot and killed Michael Brown, an un-armed teenager, people went crazy.
The story put out by Al Sharpton went something like this: Innocent black teenager, walking down the street, executed by trigger-happy racist cop. If this account was accurate, I would be the first one in line to demand justice and prosecution of the offending policeman. However, the simple fact that Al Sharpton got involved should be our first red flag about the situation.
Protests broke out, quickly followed by rioting and lawlessness. Al Sharpton arrived on the scene to do what he does best: jump to conclusions before knowing the facts, and stir up a big kettle of "mob justice." Black leaders were anguishing over this "execution" of an "innocent" teenager by a "racist" cop before anyone involved had the slightest grasp of the real facts in the case.
Nobody knows what really has happened in these types of incidents until there has been a collection of evidence, an autopsy performed, and witnesses interviewed. Justice demands that we investigate and determine the facts of a case before deciding what course of action to take. That's why we have detectives, and prosecutors, and judges, and juries. We have a legal process. It is not perfect, but it is certainly preferable to what we have witnessed so far in Ferguson.
The town of Ferguson has been devastated by the recurring protests which, with the accompanying looting and violence, have resulted in millions of dollars of property damage, scores of people hospitalized with injuries, and crippling losses to local businesses.
Now, after three autopsies and investigations by the local police, the FBI, and the U.S. Department of Justice, some actual facts in the case are beginning to come to light.
Here are a few excerpts from a Washington Post story on 10/23/14:
Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown fought for control of the officer’s gun, and Wilson fatally shot the unarmed teenager after he moved toward the officer as they faced off in the street, according to interviews, news accounts and the full report of the St. Louis County autopsy of Brown’s body.
Some of the physical evidence — including blood spatter analysis, shell casings and ballistics tests — also supports Wilson’s account of the shooting, The Post’s sources said, which casts Brown as an aggressor who threatened the officer’s life.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch late Tuesday night published Brown’s official county autopsy report, an analysis of which also suggests that the 18-year-old may not have had his hands raised when he was fatally shot, as has been the contention of protesters who have demanded Wilson’s arrest.
The St. Louis County Police Department and the FBI are investigating the shooting, and evidence gathered by both agencies is being presented to the grand jury, which started meeting in mid-August and is expected to conclude its work early next month.
So we will soon have the report from the grand jury, in what must certainly be considered one of the most closely-scrutinized investigations of a police shooting incident in recent memory. From the information already available, there are plentiful reasons to doubt Al Sharpton's inflammatory version of the incident.
As I stated previously, if the facts showed that Officer Wilson was indeed guilty of killing Michael Brown, I would be the first one in line to demand he be prosecuted. But if, in fact, the evidence shows that Police Officer Darren Wilson was attacked by Michael Brown, and used justifiable force to defend himself, this entire eruption of violence in Ferguson was nothing more than cynical left-wing political exploitation of a justified police action shooting.
This tragic event can serve as a lesson. I have drawn a few conclusions from this incident that I think might be helpful, so I will pass them on as a public service. These simple rules may help you avoid a similar fate if you ever encounter a police officer on the street.
Top Three Tips for Black Teenagers to Avoid Being Shot by a Police Officer:
1. If the officer says, "Stop!" Then just stop.
2. Do not punch a police officer in the face.
3. Do not try to grab a police officer's weapon.
In fact, these rules might come in handy regardless of your race, age or sexual orientation.
I'm just sayin'...
