Emotions are riding high among militant blacks and their supporters over the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. Rational thought on their part, however, is apparently non-existent. I’ve never seen an event that brought forth an overreaction of this magnitude in the face of objective truth. There have certainly been blatant civil rights abuses or police excesses in the past that would understandably be met with this kind of protest. But this isn’t one of them. It’s an incident that’s not generalizable as a sample of alleged police oppression of young black males.
Michael Brown was the aggressor, not an innocent bystander. He’s a counterfeit poster boy for the protesters’ cause. It’s a shame that his actions led to his death, but had he behaved differently during a justifiable police stop, he’d still be alive and facing little more than a slap on the wrist for stealing a handful of Cigarillos and roughing up the check-out clerk at a convenience store.
Brown has been exploited as an excuse for acting out by self-righteous angry mobs oblivious to the facts of this case, career race-baiters like Al Sharpton and opportunist looters on another deep-discount shopping spree.
The “hands up, don’t shoot” routine performed by demonstrators was copied by a few St. Louis Rams football players who may have been well-intentioned. It was later parroted by members of the Black Caucus in the U.S. House. The latter group, politically motivated, indulged in theatrics and histrionic declarations on the House floor.
“Hands up, don’t shoot” is a fantasy. Brown never did or said any such thing, as the grand jury proceedings made eminently clear. Justice was done in Ferguson. Due process was observed and there was no prosecutable case against Officer Darren Wilson.
Emotions have been inflamed by the liberal mass media whose knee-jerk default is to assume the worst about the police and glorify their alleged victims. Brown was portrayed as a “gentle giant” and described repeatedly as an “unarmed teenager.” One can be “unarmed” but still plenty dangerous. In fact, Brown was nearly 300 pounds and had huge arms, which he thrust through the window of Wilson’s squad car. Had he succeeded in grabbing Wilson’s gun, he’d have been well armed. Wilson justifiably defended himself, just as a black or Latino cop would have. At that juncture, race didn’t matter.
Sure, there’s a residue of racism in America, just as there is in any multiracial society. But there’s a lot less racism here than there used to be, and ours is among the most racially diverse societies in the world. This is no longer the America Martin Luther King Jr. fought courageously to desegregate. Jim Crow laws are long gone. Bull Connor is dead. Seventy years ago, Jackie Robinson had to break the color line in Major League Baseball. Today, blacks dominate professional and amateur sports. There are black CEOs of major corporations. Black big city mayors abound. We have black governors, black police chiefs, a Black Caucus in Congress. Oh, and a black attorney general and president of the United States. There are minority set-asides in government contracts, minority hiring quotas, and racial preferences in college admissions.
A much more tangible danger than alleged oppression by police officers toward blacks is black-on-black violence, which accounts for more than 90 percent of black homicide victims. Ironically, white police officers on the streets stand between black murderers and their black victims. Maybe it’s time for blacks to restrain their victim mentality and focus on getting their own houses in order.
Freelance columnist Mike Rosen’s radio show airs weekdays from 1 to 3 p.m. on 850-KOA.
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