Today\’s paragraph comes to us from Brittney Cooper. Ms. Cooper teaches “Women\’s and Gender Studies” and “Africana Studies” at Rutgers University in New Jersey: two fields of learning guaranteed not to prepare students for almost any productive job in the real world.
So what would you expect Ms. Cooper\’s viewpoint to be regarding the confrontation between Michael Brown and Officer Darren Wilson, in which Wilson shot and killed Brown? I can\’t hear your answer, but I have a feeling that I know what you would be saying.
In any event, Ms. Cooper has written a review of the movie “Selma” (about a Black woman, of course). But, as someone who never seems to write about anything but Black grievance, she apparently found it necessary to preface her review with this:
Astate of emergency has been declared in Ferguson, Missouri, while anation awaits a grand jury decision concerning the indictment ofMichael Brown\’s killer. That hundreds of thousands of dollarsin new military equipment has been purchased by the police inanticipation of the decision suggests that Officer Darren Wilson willget away with his crimes. Ferguson activists have been activelypreparing themselves for the inevitable for weeks now, but as youngpreacher and activist Nyle Fort remarked, “We been in a \’state ofemergency\’ since our flesh was stolen from the motherland and usedto build a new world.\'” While I hold my breath, I have been leftwondering – since the state of emergency is altogether “normal”for black folks – what we do while we wait for inevitabledevastation.
My thoughts on Ms. Cooper\’s analysis are as follows:
-Why is it any surprise that new equipment has been purchased by the Ferguson police? Did you happen to notice the week of rioting and looting which took place after Michael Brown was killed? Does it not stand to reason that the police would try to be in a better position to prevent more of the same if protesters/rioters/looters don\’t like the grand jury decision?
-Regarding your anticipation that “Officer Darren Wilson will get away with his crimes”: do you care even remotely about the findings of the investigation? You – like so many others who think your way – don\’t need any investigation. Wilson is guilty and must pay for his crimes, whether or not there are any crimes to pay for. The blood inside the car, the gunshot residue on Brown\’s hand, the fact that he had just robbed a store and roughed up the worker who tried to stop him, the leaked information that Brown\’s autopsy showed he was high on marijuana and that a half dozen or more eye witness accounts generally coincided with Officer Wilson\’s version of what happened? Irrelevant\’n\’immaterial to you.
-While it is certainly true that there was a prolific trade in which Black people were taken from Africa and brought here as slaves, you somehow forgot the fact that most were not “stolen from the motherland” by the traders, they were captured, and sold to the traders by other Black people – the Ashanti tribes being foremost among them. Without Black slave traders, the White slave trade could not have existed as it did. Why do you leave that little tidbit out?
-There will be “devastation” if the grand jury does not bring an indictment? Again, the facts which this investigation will uncover, which might exonerate Wilson, do not at all seem to matter to you.
I award Brittney Cooper Paragraph Of The Day honors for showing us, so clearly, what happens when an educated person puts on thick blinders, and sees nothing but what he/she wants to see.
I like to believe we all know there are people who “think” this way, but it is good to see an obvious example every now and then.
Which Ms. Cooper has so clearly provided.
