punk d:
I'm a black man living in America. I am a black man working in a predominantly white field where very few managers look like me. I fear for myself and my sons that if we find ourselves at the wrong place at the wrong time, we could end up like Michael Brown.
I have been disturbed by Wilson's comments since the non-indictment has come down. He call wrestling with brown like a 5 year old wrestling Superman and yet he was able to wrestle Superman and win firing off two shots of his gun. Further, Wilson stated he went after Brown after - repeat after - Brown ran from the shots. This makes sense from the sense that the officer was going to at least arrest Brown, but subduing Brown didn't appear to be in the officer's mindset and instead he only saw a 6' 4" black kid who was more likely than not being disrespectful to the officer. What gets me most is that Brown put his hands out, which Wilson interpreted as an aggressive sign. Witness #40 also saw it that way. Witness #40 also wrote how she needs to see black people as not just nig--rs.
And that might be what the problem is. If the kid is white perhaps Wilson doesn't feel as threatened perhaps he sees when he puts his hands up he sees surrender and not aggression. Those are split second decisions and when we may never know what was going on in Brown's head. I don't disagree that Wilson was afraid, but I'm not sure if he had such cause to be afraid at the time he shot his weapon 10 times after the initial altercation.
A friend of mine who is a talk show host on the radio station WORD in Greenville, SC,
Vince Coakley (who happens to be a black man) had an entirely different take of the situation. First, I have to note, that according to the Grand Jury witness testimony, no witness testified that Brown ever put his hands up in surrender. Witness # 40 was injected opinion 'as she saw it' which means she interpreted the incident rather than made a factual statement that corroborated anything forensically determined or supported by witness testimony.
Keeping that in mind, witnesses nearly unanimously gave testimony entirely supporting Wilson's account.
That said, I called into the show and spoke with Vince on the air to ask him, as a a black man, his interpretation of the whole matter. He had a very interesting interpretation that no one on either side of this issue has taken into account. In a nutshell:
The only reason this incident even made the news was because it could be distorted by the bias of fitting perfectly into a Liberal/Progressive media template that involves stereotypes and could be exploited for sensationalist purposes.
To wit: White Cop shoots Black Kid, ergo, must be racially motivate. Fits the template perfectly.
If the races had been reversed and a Black Cop shot a White Kid and it was contended that the Black Cop shot the White Kid because of racist motives, it would not fit the Liberal/Progressive media template. In fact, it would not even have been in the news regardless of any bias of any news organisation, right or left.
I am familiar with Ferguson, MO and I know exactly where this shooting occurred. Here is a town that is largely African American. Yet, the Black community complains that there aren't enough Black cops on the police force. Then they claim white cops are out to kill black kids. Why aren't there more black policemen? Because of the belief by the community that the system is corrupt and they don't like the police and refuse to support the 'corrupt' system by becoming policemen. It's a circular argument. If you want change, then you must participate instead of burning down your own neighbours' property in protest.
The race issue is a political expedient and tool into pulling the wool over the eyes of everyone to hid the real problem. The real problem is that in the US, everyone, be they black, white, purple or green, do not take responsibility for their own lives and instead expect someone else to do everything for them. People in America today blame all their problems on someone else, do nothing constructive about it, and then complain when nothing happens as they sit on their collective arse or riot senselessly in a vein hope of getting someone else to do something for them.
I see too much of the divisive issue of race being played up by all too many people on every end of the spectrum of political behaviour. White people complain they didn't get a job because of Affirmative Action; black people complain they didn't get the job because they weren't the right skin colour. The race issue is an illusion inflicted upon us by people who want to keep everyone down regardless of skin colour and this is evidenced by the fact that no one is getting the job.
Sure, there are A-holes out there that will make decisions according to skin colour, but those A-holes need to be beat senseless with a big stick. This all points out the big scam being pulled on everyone regardless of race: the mass media, politicians, do-gooders and not so good-doers like to pigeon-hole people into categories because it is all to easy to tread people as members of a group rather than treat them as individuals. Lumping all whites and all blacks into to manageable groups is easier than dealing the millions of individuals. It is a dirty political trick that has been pulled on all of us since the beginning of time.
The sad thing is that a person of one race will never be able to look at a person of another race without the cultural baggage of ugly and unjust stereotypes coming to mind. It's even sadder that there are people who try to exploit this fact for one reason or another. It's up to us as individuals to think before we act rather than to just blindly react. We, as the Human Race need to think instead of react. This means we have to act as individuals and not members of a group, or in other words, don't let the bastards trick us into thinking we are only members of a collective group.
The objective reasoning is that we all should have the goal of protecting the rights and dignity of all minorities and also remember that the world's smallest minority is the individual. We need to thumb our noses at the race-baters and say that we aren't going to play that game any more.
