Michael Brown, Ferguson, and Where to Go From Here

First and foremost, let me say that the death of Michael Brown is a tragedy.  My prayers go out to his family for losing a child.  As a parent, I can't imagine the pain that they are going through.

Let me also say that Darren Wilson should and his family also be getting our prayers.  His life is pretty much ruined for the foreseeable future.  He will have to resign from his current position and he'll never be able to work in law enforcement again.  Also, he'll most likely be caught up in civil lawsuits and other legal entanglements for the next couple years.

Below are some of my thoughts around the announcement last nights and the interesting dialogue happening in social media and the TV news channels.

Should African Americans Fear the Police?

Let me first state my qualifications to speak on this.  To make things clear, my mother and father are African American.  As are my uncles/aunts, brothers, cousins, etc..  I went to a predominately African American elementary, middle, and high school all in the city of Detroit.  My closest friends in high school were all African American.  And some of my closest friends today are African American.  So I've been around black faces for a long time and I personally have had one for a long time.    

I've never been arrested by the police.  I've never been in a situation where I've feared being arrested by the police.  None of the people I've associated with have been arrested by the police or seriously antagonized by the police.  I think looking at the data, I can understand why this is.  To lighten the mood, I'll let Chris Rock explain it in a humorous way (BEWARE, THERE IS CURSING IN THIS CLIP)

So in summary, I think its craziness to read things out there in the social media world about black people having to be in fear of the police everywhere that they go.  Am I lucky that I've never had any issues with the law?  No.......nope.......nah.  I guess that I just know the difference between right and wrong and I do them and the police leave me alone as a result.  Weird concept.

Some People Just Want to Watch the World Burn

I watched the coverage last night for a couple hours.  When it began, I knew that many of the "protestors" there with masks on their faces came for a particular purpose.  After the announcement, while Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch was reading the reasoning for the no charges decision, you could see people already running down the streets of Ferguson.  My opinion is that many people there came with an agenda and were ready to do violence.  Watching the footage, there was a cell phone store broken into and looted.  There was also a liquor store broken into.  Then you can see people running away with "free" stuff.  So are we to believe that people were so outraged by the "lack of justice" that they decided to steal cell phones and alcohol to even the score?  

"Some men aren't looking for things logical, some men want to watch the world burn"

You want to talk about criminals?  Let's look at some real criminals in this process.  We hear the cries of justice, but no one is asking for justice for the businesses that were harmed last night.  So it appears that many of the "justice seekers" are in fact hypocrites who never were actually looking for justice, they wanted revenge.

The Role of Police Officers

I think that another troubling matter in the conversation is the blanket statements about police officers and their "brutality".  I think that yes there are some corrupt police officers but at the end of the day, they serve a purpose to protect and serve our communities.  If someone breaks in your house, you don't think, "Maybe I shouldn't call the police, they are corrupt and brutal and they won't protect me."  No, you have expectations that they will protect you because that's their job.

These men/women leave their homes and families each day with the possibility that they may not make it home.  In 2013, 105 police officers died in the line of duty.  That's about 2 per week.  The vast majority of us don't live this reality.  Like I said, they're all not perfect.  However, imagine that you worked in a field were two people who do the same job as you are killed every week.  So of course, they are trained to use deadly force because deadly force is regularly inflicted upon them and it's hard to discern how dangerous another person is.  Of course, there's some out there who use bad judgement, but it's hard for us to tell someone how they should feel about their life being on the line in an altercation.

12 People Know the Whole Story and That Story is What Actually Happened

So the one thing that is lost in the trenches is the TRUTH.  The story of what actually happened.  In this case, 12 jurors were presented with the story about what happened that day.  There was physical evidence, ballistics, and forensic data that were used to provide FACTS around what happened that day.  So we have to keep in mind that there must have been some pretty good evidence to show that Darren Wilson had some type of cause to use deadly force.  Also, there were eye witness accounts from black people that agreed with what Officer Wilson said.  The fantasy story of the racist police officer who went on a rage storm and killed an innocent young person doesn't appeared to have held up.  Those stories were proven to be false because the stories didn't match each other and the people eventually admitted to sharing a story that they heard from somewhere else.  The evidence proved that there was a significant altercation at the car which led to shots being fired.  What would be awesome is if protesters discussed the evidence presented.

Where Do We Go From Here?

I think that many of those protesting last night weren't looking for justice, they were looking for revenge.  They wanted to see Darren Wilson punished for killing an 18 year old child, regardless of it was even justified or not.  The calls of racism, police brutality, and corrupt justice system are all just excuses to use to justify their emotions.  People are allowed to be emotional about the situation, but at a certain point, we have to be honest with ourselves.  I think that given the law and the evidence that was presented, justice was done.  Yes, it's a tragedy.  Yes, it's horrible to see a young man lose his life.  Yes, it's terrible that a community is shaken.  But let's let the truth be brought in to help with the situation.  Emotions can take us to a dangerous place if they are not controlled by something greater.

It's time to start asking the question of what real "justice" is and how to bridge the gap between justice and truth because I think that you can't have one without the other.  In this process we keep hearing statistics about the ration of African Americans in jail.  However, no one is asking the question of if they're actually committing the crimes they are sent in for.  If so, how do we stop that.  Real justice is having discussions about the problem at hand, not discussing the symptoms.

To have justice, the first assumption is that you live in a "just" society with agreed upon standards of morality, rules, laws, and equality.  Do we have that?  I think that those who are organizing these protests have an obligation to examine the facts and the evidence presented to the grand jury and understand what actually happened and what they are really protesting.  Without it, I think that they are doing people a grand disservice leading them down a path of propaganda and self agendas.  The great thing is that the facts of the case are out there now.  Let's talk around that.  I hope that the Ferguson community can move on from this tragedy in a productive way and have leadership at all levels engage with them to discuss fixing the problems at hand.  I hope to see Rev. Al Sharpton around in Ferguson in the coming months to help build that community back up given his involvement there giving press conferences around his disappointment?  Probably not, because he'll be on to the next "injustice".


That's all I have for today.  These are my thoughts and you are free to disagree if you want.  That's what makes this country great.  Tomorrow, we'll get back to some of the budget things I started talking about yesterday.

Until next time............Happy Budget, Happy Life