What would a racist\’s wet dream be?
How about video “proof” that Black people are a bunch of uncivilized subhumans who, if given the chance, will run through the streets, using any pretext they can and steal anything that isn\’t nailed down? It would be great for any racist, wouldn\’t it?
Well, a mob in Ferguson, Missouri (Saint Louis metro) has “proven” that racist right about everything.
Before continuing, let me say – just in case my use of quotation marks didn\’t fully communicate it – that I think generalizing about any group, Black or otherwise, is absurd. I have known, worked with, and been friends with, far too many Black people to believe the stereotypes I posted above.
But, sad to say, many people do. And what happened – maybe still is happening – in Ferguson, is their wet dream come true.
Michael Brown was an 18 year old young Black man. On Saturday, he was walking with another young man and they were approached by a police squad car.
What happened afterwards is impossible to know for sure, since different people have wholly different stories about it. Let me give you two very different accounts:
-According to the police, Brown was shot to death after assaulting a police officer and trying to get his gun. –
-According to several people claiming to be witnesses, the two young men were walking on the street, the police told them to “get on the fucking sidewalk”, an argument ensued and Brown, unarmed, wound up shot dead in cold blood.
Which of these accounts are true? Are either of them true? Where does the actual truth lie? We can\’t possibly know for certain.
But what we do know is that there was a rally and march for Brown on Sunday, which degenerated into an orgy of anarchy, looting and violence.
How does this resolve the controversy over Michael Brown? How does this redress any wrong which may have been committed by the police against him? How does it honor his memory?
The answer, obviously is that it does none of those things.
What it does do, however, is give people who hate Blacks for being Black, the chance to say “See, I keep telling you this what they are, and you keep pretending I\’m wrong. But there it is right in front of your eyes. Michael Brown\’s death wasn\’t a tragedy to these _______(fill in whichever offensive term for Blacks you care to), it was an opportunity for them. An excuse to loot stores, steal an ATM and who knows what else? It\’s like I\’ve said all along; they are animals. Savages.”
The saddest part is that, for the people committing the violence and looting, the above assessment (absent the offensive term for Blacks, of course) is, in fact, correct.
For everyone else, it is not. But you can bet that some people – maybe a lot of people – will judge the entire community by what those few dozen idiots did.
Personally, I won\’t be one of them. And I urge you not to be either.
Resist the urge to generalize. Judge people as individuals, not as members of ethnic groups.
It\’s called basic intelligence.
