So what are we to make of lynch mob by media?
A police officer shoots an unarmed young man. One is White — the cop. And one is Black — the civilian. From there, the facts elide into contradiction, gossip, and ambiguity. The case is referred to a grand jury, and as jurors deliberate, news media predict mayhem. The President of the United States weighs in.
Nay. The news and social media urged mayhem. Reported pre-mayhem. Smelled blood in the air. Prayed for mayhem to sell papers (and website ads). Lordie!
Now we learn the grand jurors couldn’t discern enough evidence to decide, clearly and incontrovertibly, what actually happened during those violent moments. They decline to indict.
Doesn’t matter. The eighteen-year-old is in the ground. The cop has already been tried and convicted in the Court of Public Opinion, a.k.a. the Kangaroo Court of the Media.
As for due process? Casualty of hysteria. Victim of circumstances. Lost and gone, maybe forever. Echo of the past. Wave of the future.
Plus ça change…
Hmmmm…..Two “gentleman” decide to go in a convenience store and take a handful of cigars and resist arrest. One is shot and killed. To me this is more about law and order and keeping the peace. Not feeling the race issue. Should we just let the thugs and thieves take the streets? The burning of the town will accomplish nothing but yet will chase businesses from the town after they are burnt out. This happened in the 60’s in large cities during the riots, businesses left in droves and some cities never recovered…
Yes. And if those businesses are in a low-SES part of town, chances are many of them weren’t insured. But even if they were, the fires are arson — and the result of civil unrest. Often insurance policies disallow claims that involve either of those.
I’ll bet a lot of business owners can’t collect on whatever coverage they have. And that will put them flat out of business. Who would be crazy enough to go back into those burnt-out malls and blocks?
This means fewer jobs, more poverty, and less access to everyday products and services for the people who live there. Dumb and dumber!
As far as the MSM is concerned, if it bleeds-it leads and they did want blood. If I’m driving and I get pulled over I roll my window down and keep my hands on the wheel until the officer speaks to me. I don’t want him second guessing my intention.
I simply obey his requests.
On the other paw people like Michael Brown are belligerent towards authority .
Now you know the truth, the grand jury has spoke and Michael Brown reminds me of that Toyota phrase, ‘you asked for it-you got it’
Now our president instead of simply saying, ‘the jury has made a decision and we must respect it’ rambled on and on pours more fuel on the fire. Then Michael Browns step father is caught on audio saying, ‘burn the bitch down’.
So I ask, what did LBJ’s great society really accomplish?
As I understand it, the grand jury isn’t intended to discover whether the cop was guilty, it was meant to decide if there ought to be an actual trial. In a situation where there are conflicting witness statements and evidence, I don’t see why that doesn’t actually point directly to having a trial where these facts should be examined more carefully. I don’t see why fatally shooting an unarmed young man is not considered something we should look at more closely.
I’ve seen conflicting reports about the alleged theft as well, such as the store owners stating they did not call the police about a theft.
And characterizing the deceased as a thug seems rather prejudicial, in itself. There are simply too many conflicting reports about what really happened, particularly in the face of a PD that has been both aggressive and escalatory in actions (throwing out the media, establishing no fly zones, using “snipers” in a way that’s simply meant to intimidate because no real sniper ever perches atop a clearly visible position) is also a concern.
I’m thinking of the number of times the PD lied, for example, about how they didn’t use tear gas and later admitted they did use it and did actually lie.
Whether or not Wilson was guilty of murder rather than a lesser crime, I’m not sure how we’re OK with laws that are OK with killing the unarmed.
And I’d like to point out as well that just obeying authority does not actually mean you’ll be fine. The fact is, while there are plenty of LEOs who do their job of actually protecting and serving, there are also plenty who abuse their power. We know this happens for a fact, and I don’t have the luxury of knowing which cop is which – corruption isn’t something you see tattooed across their foreheads.
I’ve had friends stalked by police for their number, known people who were abused and harassed despite complying with every order. Just this last month we have reports out of OK that they have cops on the payroll who have serially raped women they pulled over. Obedience actually doesn’t make you safe.
And I’ve had it straight from the mouths of sheriff and police officer friends and relatives: racial profiling is alive and active in the LEO culture. I “pass” as appearing harmless and “innocent” and black people don’t.
Frankly, saying “people like Michael Brown are belligerent” compels me to point out that having experienced plenty of similarly veined racism though not nearly to that degree, if I and my friends and family were always categorized as “them” and “guilty”, “thugs” and murderable? I’d be pretty damn belligerent even if I didn’t act on it.
And the prosecutor blaming media and social media for making this difficult, well, isn’t that a shame. From where I stood, at least social media played a big role in keeping this from being swept under the rug. The main news outlets couldn’t even get in and some of those that could were also brutalized. At least two news crews were either physically assaulted by the police or assaulted and rounded up for arrest even when they weren’t actively reporting.
Social media didn’t kill MB. There were as many voices on social media urging finding a way to progress or just being peacefully supportive as there were inflammatory voices, but at least there you were hearing more voices than just the PD which wasn’t actually always telling the truth. Conflicting, yes. Chaotic, yes. But more transparent.
Lastly, I’m not seeing how anyone can sit in judgment over these riots for this reason when nearly the exact same scenes have been played out just last month and before that for the completely idiotic reason of WINNING the World Series. Every. Damn. Time! Every time the Giants win the Series, there is looting, there is property destruction, there are cop cars set on fire. But the difference is that those riots are considered business as usual. Doesn’t require the National Guard, doesn’t result in cops beating the citizens.
Of course I think the damage and destruction is appalling. But I don’t have it in me to say that they’re wrong when this is borne out of true frustration with injustices when we have similar destruction wrought for completely senseless reasons like sports games and pumpkins for the love of Pete.
Argh! I hadn’t heard that about the Giants & the World Series…sports not being my favorite subject matter, I guess I haven’t been paying attention. :-b Bad human!
Rioting is rioting, whether it’s over a sporting event (of all the stupid things) or over a political cause (which is what this episode has turned into). Rioting is different from protesting. It’s possible to get your point across without burning down people’s businesses, destroying your neighborhood and your city, injuring people, and killing people.
And while I do understand that a lot of injustice has been inflicted on Black people, IMHO that hasn’t happened here. Brown was caught on video robbing a store and shoving its employee around: http://www.cbsnews.com/videos/ferguson-police-release-surveillance-video-related-to-michael-brown-shooting/ Look at the size of the guy, his aggression, his brutality, and his obviously threatening mood. This is not an innocent unarmed teenaged kid.
Also of interest:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2014/11/25/legal-expert-based-on-testimony-ferguson-grand-jury-made-right-call/
http://www.insidebayarea.com/breaking-news/ci_27012388/drummond-bogus-demon-defense-michael-brown-killing and the comments on this post
Look at the language in the lede to this article: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ferguson-darren-wilson-sends-letter-thanks-article-1.2023191 It’s very loaded. And that’s my point: a lot of the emotion we’re seeing is being whipped up by the media. It IS lynch-mob-by-media.
@Revanche
Friends stalked by the police?
None of my friends suffer from that.
Race relations are worse since Obama has been president.
Interesting. I was with a swarthy friend who has a Ph.D. from Berkeley; born in the Imperial Valley and decidedly a US citizen. We were estate-saling on the east side of the Valley. After visiting one sale, we went into a small shopping center, where we wanted to have breakfast at a bagel shop.
A sheriff’s patrol car was parked nearby. She was alarmed enough that a) she didn’t want me to turn into the parking lot at all and b) she was nervous about getting out.
And one of my students, a Navajo man who planned to enter politics on the Reservation and go into leadership there, said he and members of his family were routinely stopped and hassled by police, sheriff’s deputies, and Highway Patrol officers.
Stalking? I expect it feels that way to them.
The death of Michael Brown is very sad. Two families are changed forever. One aspect of this case bothers me greatly. If the population of Ferguson is more than 60% black, why doesn’t the police force (and the rest of the town government if applicable) reflect that racial percentage? Are the citizens of Ferguson unwilling to take charge of their own town? Did they forget the power of their vote? Protests and demonstrations reflect the anger of the town and is needed for greater awareness. But tell me how many of those protestors are actively working to qualify for the job of protecting and serving the citizens of Ferguson?
Sounds like the sixty-four-dollar question, until you consider what life is like for young people in the poor parts of major cities.
First off, to become a cop you need a college degree: at least an A.A., and many officers have a B.A. (http://education-portal.com/requirements_to_become_a_police_officer.html) In low-SES communities — oh, let’s drop the PC facade and call them “ghettoes” — large numbers of kids never graduate from high school. That disqualifies them from police work, right there.
Let’s say, though, that you as a ghetto kid DO score a high-school diploma and think you’d like to be a police officer. Getting that college degree — whether the two-year or the four-year variety — is an uphill battle. To start with, experience has shown that just growing up in a low-income family is the STRONGEST indicator that you’ll need remedial work when you arrive at college. Few students complete remedial classes, which put them behind their peers, in amount of time required to complete the degree, by anywhere from one to four semesters. There’s a lot of debate over the effectiveness of college-level remediation — some evidence shows that remedial work in math helps such students, but that is much less true of remedial work in language skills. And if you can’t read well and understand what you’re reading, you’re unlikely to thrive on a college campus, even in the debased atmosphere we see today.
So you’re going to have to work even harder than other kids to get to that A.A. or B.A., and it’s going to take you longer. Then, because financially you come from a point way behind your middle-class colleagues, a dollar for you represents more work and struggle than does a dollar for them, because you start with fewer of dollars and your parents’ skills earn many fewer of them than your classmates’ parents earn. The cost of tuition, room, board, and textbooks may be more than you can manage.
But let’s suppose you’re willing to work hard enough to overcome these challenges, as some low-income Black kids do.
If you were going to work that hard, would you REALLY want to become a cop? The median salary for a patrol officer is $52,210. That means half of them earn less than that; some 10% earn in the vicinity of $35,500. (http://www1.salary.com/Police-Officer-Salary.html) An A.A. will qualify you for any number of trades that earn more than that. The MRI tech who MRI’ed my breasts yesterday told me that to learn to do her job, she had to get an A.A.: median salary: $69,853 — and no one’s shooting at her. (http://www1.salary.com/MRI-technologist-Salary.html)
If you want to give back to your community, you could become a social worker: At $49,900, it’s lower paying than a cop’s job, but probably a lot safer: http://www1.salary.com/Social-Worker-BSW-salary.html
And speaking of safety… While you’re off to college, you leave your family behind in a gang-ridden ghetto.Your little brothers and sisters are still going to the gang-ridden, violent, low-quality schools you attended. Even in the unlikely event that you evaded joining the neighborhood gang out of self-preservation, you may be sure the local gang-bangers are going to frown on your career choice. And they may very well take out their resentment on your family. Extreme violence is an everyday reality of ghetto life. Most children see beatings, shootings, and killings by the time they reach 16 years old. Do you really want to enhance the likelihood that your brother, sister, or mom will be one of the targets of that violence?
It’s easy to apply middle-class values and realities to people living in poverty. Problem is, the people who are living the ghetto reality experience life from a whole different perspective.