#Ferguson Redux

If Bill Cosby were in Ferguson, the first thing he would do is rape someone.... Then the second thing he would do is criticize blacks.

I was a young child during the LA Riots back in '92, and though I didn't participate in those riots, I can tell these present riots are for rank amateurs. Like the rioters out here, they're not demonstrating outrage so much as damaging other people's property. The rioters aren't violent enough to be revolutionaries and are not peaceful enough to be protestors. They are posers--pseudo-revolutionaries--and most hate the cops more than they have been victimized by the police. They hide amongst the legitimate protestors, so really, I would just stay home. The rioters are ruining the legitimate points that you might be making about racial profiling and police brutality. And here's what's going to happen: Business people will not want to build in Ferguson--not for a decade--and the land will become blighted. And this wouldn't be the cops' fault. Because one black guy was killed in self-defense, this place is going to get worse, not better. There is no dialogue--and any dialogue that might occur would lead to shouting and mutual recriminations. Cops come and go, but these riots will last long in Missourians' (Missourites'?) minds. Long after Wilson is dead, the history books will speak of those assholes who burned down a piece of Missouri.

Of course, this really isn't about the one black guy. The media--especially the rightwing media--are attempting to condense this into a Mike Brown/Ferguson PD issue. We are supposedly recovering from the worst recession since the Great Depression--a recovery that has largely benefited the wealthy/middle-class more than the poor. In 2014, some people still cannot believe a brown guy named "Hussein" could have been born in America. Voter ID laws (that prevent blacks from voting) are good but gun control laws (that might protect blacks' right to stay alive) are evil. Screwdrivers and hoodies are burglar tools. Don't film cops because they're shy.

These systemic issues do not change certain problems with the DA's case: Scanning the grand jury transcript, the pro-Brown witnesses did not understand that their recollections were wrong. They didn't see lies as lies, and they repeated what they thought members of THEIR community wanted to hear: Brown had his hands up, and he wasn't fighting back. Some of the prosecution's witnesses didn't see what happened but were repeating hearsay. And the forensic evidence supported the defense. The video of Brown assaulting another man supported the defense. A grand jury could indict a ham sandwich, and thus the case for self-defense was so strong that Wilson does not have the culpability of a ham sandwich. (What does need to be explained was the apparent shift in the police's story that Brown was stopped for the violent robbery that he'd just committed, not walking in the street.)

Meanwhile Wilson does himself no favors by speaking. His conscious is clear, which are HIS exact words. (He said this--Google it!) Really? No regrets? I know almost nothing about Darren Wilson, but I can think up at least one thing that he did wrong in his life. I can think up one thing he did wrong. When you kill someone, you should show remorse for your actions--even if it was just in self-defense, not murder. Nope. He has no regrets. I like Darren Wilson a whole lot less now. He was once a good cop, but he'll never be a cop again.

The protestors are legitimate in putting forth the issue of police corruption. I have the creeping suspicion that whites would care a lot more about what's happening in Ferguson if a Chipolte were burning. The immaturity of the rioters has been used as an example of the animalistic behavior of blacks. Plus they probably voted for Obama, including the ones under 19.

The thug Mayor Rudy Giuliani exemplifies the problems with so many of the rioters' critics by pointing out this: Well, black people are always killing each other too--so why not agents of the government? He is a LAWYER! He should know that's not how the law works, damnit! Just because black guys are shooting each other doesn't give cops permission to shoot them too--y'know, get in on the action. Soon all Americans will run out of black guys to shoot. Then white people will have to start importing them--from somewhere.

Giuliani's points are based on the neo-racist notion that most black people agree with conservatives and that racism no longer exists. In antebellum America, slaveholders believed that blacks revolted not because they were legitimately outraged but because outside agitators (white liberals) were turning them against their benevolent masters. The police are totally honest and not racist at all. The "race hustlers" ( re Al Sharpton--always with Sharpton) and the media are tricking black people into believing the status quo is racist. Now there are rumblings that Brown's stepfather should be prosecuted for "inciting" these riots. (In his anger that the government just killed his son, he expressed support for tearing down the government.) Shockingly, in this story, only the black guy might end up being sent to prison.

Ferguson PD, demonstrating how big their balls are, have demanded the NFL should apologize to them for inflaming racial tensions after several Rams performed the "hands up" protest gesture. (Oh, and to the people of American, putting your hands up is a good call when confronted by the police--this movement is more sarcastic than I would like to see.) Of all the evils of the NFL, they are not causing riots. They are in the unenviable positions of having to choose between showing support for law enforcement and abiding by the cops' sheer stupidity.

Rudy Giuliani, however, is a certified asshole. Unlike Mitt Romney, it feels like Giuliani is an asshole to his own family, which makes him a very special asshole. He should go back to New York and try to exploit 9/11 some more.

#Ferguson

There's this weird belief among black Americans that if you win the fight--with the cop, or another citizen--you won't go to jail. No, black people of America, if you win the fight, you'll go to jail longer. When the cops molest you like Thandie Newton in "Crash," you should sue. (Hope you win, by the way.) When they try to arrest you, you let them arrest you and you sort it out later. When a cop pulls you over, it is not a good time to discuss race relations in America or offer the cop a critique of his job performance--you keep your hands on the wheel. If the cop is particularly bigotted, he would've shot you several minutes ago. He's probably just an average white guy trying to do his job, and he will be offended by your suggestion that he's what's wrong with America today. (And, hey, he just pulled YOU over for committing crimes--so fuck you!) When a cop pulls you over, Al Sharpton isn't going to help you because he isn't there. The ACLU isn't going to help you. The NAACP isn't going to help you. When a cop pulls you over on a deserted road late at night, it's you and a white guy and the white guy has a gun. So be cool. You know you're a great human being, but the cop doesn't know you--and that's the point of being strangers. You both believe that you're "good," but the difference between you kids is there's a 100% chance that the cop has a gun.

The anti-authoritarian streak amongst American blacks gets in the way of common sense, regrettably. The looters, and the protestors offering the looters cover, are at times living in their own reality. They are clinging to the original narrative where Brown is another Trayvon Martin, caught Walking While Black--and any evidence that contradicts this notion is part of a larger racist scheme to undermine blacks. They cling to the original story that Brown was about to be abducted by a white cop, and was only trying to defend himself against the cop. Brown, a gentle giant, tried to flee, then was shot. Then Brown was left begging for his life as the cop shot him some more. "They executed him!" is the popular refrain, and going by the original witness statements, this seems to have been the case.

However Brown was more than a hundred pounds heavier than Martin. Brown was actively committing several crimes while a real cop (not a loon pretending to be a cop) pulled him over, for committing an actual crime. Most importantly, Brown was caught on tape LITERALLY assaulting a man in the minutes he allegedly assaulted the man who claims he shot the black man in self-defense.

 

Now Brown's family supporters are claiming the police have released this tape in order to advance the conspiracy against Brown and blacks in general. This tape, in their minds, proves nothing, since Wilson didn't stop him for the shoplifting that he'd just committed. This is where I get off. This is getting stupid--stupid on several levels. It's possible that the police department didn't want to be seen as slandering a dead kid, and it's possible that the police just recently connected the dead giant black guy with a bunch of cigars on him with the report of the giant black guy who recently robbed a store of a box of cigars. (Not all blacks guys walk around with a box of cigars, just so everyone knows. That's not a thing.) The suggestion that the tape was released as part of a master plan to make Brown look bad is stupid--partly because the police force is not smart enough to have master plans--and neither was Brown, apparently, who sacrificed his life for $50 worth of tobacco.

 

Far from innocent, Brown was a bully. (I am not using the word "thug.") Like Rodney King, he is becoming an unwarranted martyr of police brutality. His family might've loved him dearly and he could've had a bright future ahead of him, but the reality of the situation is that Brown was not a gentle giant, as his family's lawyers are now spinning him in anticipation of their lawsuit, but he was an occasionally violent petty thief. He made at least one bad decision that day, which was a strong arm robbery. Whatever else happened next, his bullying behavior undoubtably contributed to his death.

 

 It now appears that the Ferguson Police Department was trying to cover-up a legitimate shooting, which is actually the weirdest of possible scenarios. This is also the best proof of their corruption: Not that they murder black men, but because they are so tone deaf to the public and the very laws that they are supposed to enforce--they fail the spin. They still have not released photos of Wilson's injuries. I imagine Wilson was pretty bruised-up, and we will see that when the photos are released in the next few days or possibly several years. However the polce department hasn't relased the photos yet because...they're idiots. This tape and Wilson's record are the reasonable doubt. No fair jury in America, after seeing this tape, would convict Wilson of murder or even manslaughter now. 

 

But that leads us to what happened. Here is one scenario, and it's only one possibility: Brown, believing that Wilson was stopping him for the violent robbery THAT HE JUST COMMITTED, tried to attack the cop through the window of his car. (The witnesses, with their own anti-cop bias and their desire to protect a neighborhood guy, thought that Wilson was somehow trying to pull the giant guy into his car--which as well as being physically impossible, would mean that he was trying to abduct an almost 300 pound black guy for reasons still unknown.) Wilson felt that this big guy was trying to grab his gun, so he shot him. Brown retreated, having just been shot. He raised his hands in surrender. However Wilson, not understanding that the fight was over--full of adrenaline and possibly having suffered head trauma--assumed that Brown was about to charge him again, so he began shooting Brown some more; alternately, Brown might have really tried to charge Wilson again. Brown was shot so many times because he was still on his feet; the wound at the top of his head suggests that he was falling downward and forward at the time.

Either way, no charges will be filed against Wilson. And trying to file civil rights charges against him would be folly due to the lack of racial aminosity from Wilson. Obama is sending Holder to try to calm down the black citizens, not because Obama hates cops. These are Obama's "I feel your pain" moments and are, if anything, condescending towards blacks. Like Obama's "beer summit," It is ultimately an empty gesture, and rightwingers need to shut the fuck up about Obama's attempts to heal the racial divide, however superficially. Rightwingers have no ideas, just criticisms--or claiming that we should stop talking about racism since talking about racism makes people racist, of course.

Assuming that Brown normally led a law-abiding life, I'm not sure what mental situation Brown was having that led him to attack that shopkeeper. What I do suspect is that if Brown had tried to run away, obeying all traffic laws, he would've goen away. Rather Brown vacillated between attacking the cop and making a get away, and this indecision cost him his life.