Let me start this post with a clear and honest statement. I believe strongly that I am not a racist. Racism in this day and age disgusts me. By now we should know better. We’ve got a long, ugly history behind us that tells us just how WRONG it is. It is my opinion, and perhaps with arrogance I believe it should be everyones opinion, that we are all human beings who deserve our life on this earth to begin and play out without prejudice and judgement that many still base on our ethnicity. If you are a religious person and you don’t agree, then you are at the very least, a hypocrite. God created all equally, right? He loves all his children? You believe everything on this planet is his creation, correct? Explain your view, please, if you are a racist but you believe in God. I’m not being sarcastic here.. I want to try to understand you, because I have trouble getting past that particularly irony.
All that being said, I’m bullsh*tting you if I don’t come clean and say that if you’re a big person wearing baggy gangsta style clothes that might or might not be concealing a weapon, with your pants half way down your ass, you’re staring me down with a dead look and a swagger that says –get out of my way, b*tch – as we walk toward each other on a deserted street, I’m getting out of your way, quickly. If that’s how you are presenting yourself, it’s reasonable to assume fear is what you’re trying to provoke, aggression and bullying is your MO, so you’ll get the reaction you were asking for. Notice I didn’t say, though, whether you are black or white. A big white dude presenting himself in the same way is going to get the same reaction from me. Maybe even a small white dude. Am I prejudice against big or small dudes dressed gangsta-like with attitude? No.. I’m cautious around someone exuding negative aggression, because I’d be stupid not to be.
We all read about the Trayv*n Martin case, and now the Micha*L Brown story. Both losses are tragic. Neither young men were armed. I don’t believe we will ever know the exact sequence of events, emotions, knee-jerk reaction? responses – appropriate or inappropriate that occurred in either of those stories. We have to rely on eye-witness accounts that are tainted with emotions, with prejudices of their own. If it was all clear in a video surveillance camera, we wouldn’t have to trust an eye witness. But most often we don’t have that clarity and so those other factors come in to play… emotion… prejudice, fear.
Regarding this newest case – This is what we know for sure. MB was a young black man. He was unarmed. He had just acted like a bully and shoved a convenience store clerk around with threatening behavior as he robbed him of a $50 box of cigars. Then he ambled down a public street, blocking traffic, which is what prompted the officer to approach him. Another bully behavior. Clearly his mindset at that time was that of defiance and aggression. Did he deserve to die because of it? Absolutely not.
Lets talk about the police officer, who now has the terrible burden of knowing he shot and killed a young unarmed man. The guy had a solid six year record, no disciplinary issues. What we know for sure – the young man in question was acting defiantly. He was behaving in the way that dangerous and armed people typically behave… with arrogance, breaking the law. Given this scenario, the officer is now on high alert for any other signs of something about to go wrong. He is trained to do so. Experience has taught him that things can go horribly wrong in an instant. The officer says the young man, when questioned and asked to stop walking down the center of the road, blocking traffic, tried to grab his gun. If this is true, really really stupid move on the young mans part. I call that extreme aggression and the officer had a right to assume the young man was going to try to shoot him with his own gun. The officers life is just as valuable as the young mans and he has a right to protect it. If it’s not true, and the officer was attempting to pull the kid into his car – (friend of victim, eyewitness claim)… and then the young man just backed up and was shot at repeatedly as his hands were up…. then the officers response was grossly -wrong-.
Why do we assume the outcome of this tussle would have been different if the young man was white? Or the officer was black? Well, statics show that this type of shooting death by an officer occurs much more often when the perp is black. Is it because there are more blacks doing these type of crimes or does racism play a roll? I keep wanting to take the color out of the question. Seems that simple to me.. just take the color out of the question. But I am a white woman who has not had to warn her children that the color of their skin might make them targets of unwarranted bigotry and hate. That reality exists.
What makes sense to you? In this case – Why would the officer pull the young man INTO his car window and start shooting…and then keep shooting as the victim backs away. Keep in mind.. at this time the officer had no idea he was looking at the guy who had just robbed the store. His reaction was based on however that young man presented himself at that very moment. Just backing away with hands up??? The eyewitness to all this was the victims friend… and accomplice in the robbery at the convenience store earlier. He’s not going to defend the cop’s judgement and betray his dead friend and implicate himself for that matter in threatening behavior. But… there stands his statement that the kid was just walking along innocently, the officer in question stopped to question him and then just opened fire as he put his hands up, killing him with repeated shots. I find that last scenario very had to believe. And it’s not because the young man was black. When analyzing this picture… it should have nothing to do with his color. It has everything to do with his known behavior and state of mind before this tragedy occurred. The officers reputation has to count for something too.
Regardless of what anyone believes, it’s a horrible tragedy all around. The pain and loss MBs family is suffering should never have come to be. A young man is dead who may have needed some discipline but did not deserve to die, and a police officer has killed someone and will have to live with that outcome for the rest of his natural life. I can’t tell you whether racism played a roll. You can’t either. But as long as we all keep fueling that fire, it’s going to burn long and strong. The people of Fergus*n who are looting among the protesters are only adding more fuel to that fire.
-Just sayin