On Ferguson

People keep asking me what I think about the whole Ferguson debacle. Honestly, I try not to, because the situation is too depressing. With that said, I don't have all the information, and am just no interested enough to pour through the evidence and court documents. From what I have read, it seems likely that Michael Brown's death at the hands of office Darren Wilson was in fact a justifiable homicide, that it was in self-defense.

Brown seems like a bully, and while this isn't the end I wish upon bullies in general, it does seem like an almost inevitable end for the thug that he apparently was. Nothing that I have seen suggests that this guy was a "good kid" who just had a bad day. I'm sure his family and friends see things differently, but then again, his own stepfather is doing his best to incite violence, so there's that. On the other hand, there is something to be said about the militarization of our police, and this wouldn't be the first time that a police office caused a wrongful death and then got off scott-free. Still, most the evidence (and accounts) which I have seen suggest that in this case, the office was justified.

I can state that there is a wrong way to handle this. That seems to be the exact thing which his "community" is doing. Let me be blunt: this "community" seems to be largely the black community of St. Louis and beyond which is stupid and or gullible enough to to believe that this incident involves some sort of racism. Anybody idiotic enough to believe liars like Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, or for that matter President Obama, and foolish enough to resort to violence and vandalism and robbery and riots and arson as a response to a non-indictment charge is probably doing more to further racism than any men in white hoods could ever hope to have come pass.

It's absurd to think that this helps anybody. It's insane to believe that this is the right reaction at any level. The fact that very few of the victims of this violence have any connection to the original case--other than living in the same city--makes it all the more random and pointless. This is not to say that targeted violence against Officer Wilson and his family--as might be suggested by, say, the New York Times (who apparently published his wife's name and the street they lived on) is any better. Still, there is some insanity to the fact that, among other thing, the church which Micheal Brown's family attends was burned down during this rioting.

It is nice, however, to see that a few members of the black community have the right basic attitude concerning this, even if they still voice a little of the "us (blacks) vs. them (everybody else)" chip-on-the-shoulder which is so detrimental to real community-building.

As a final thought, I think that Carl Olson is essentially correct: "Men without roots turn into looters; men without purpose turn into predators."