Sunday, August 24, 2014

On the shooting of Michael Brown

First off let me start by saying that I have reviewed the facts of the shooting of Michael Brown, a black teen who was shot by a white police officer in Ferguson Missouri, and I am still not convinced on what really happened so I am going to play the patience card and wait for actual evidence to come out in order for me to properly opine as to what actually happened on that faithful Saturday afternoon.

Many blogs and media personalities (not to name any) have been siding with one or the other, mainly on the side of Michael Brown. Though it is true that we should wait for the facts before convicting someone, in other words the presumption of innocence before being found guilty, people do have a right to express any and all wrongheaded opinion about what happened to Michael Brown and whether or not a crime was committed by the cop.

I have seen the black community express their disappointment on the matter and on race relations with the law enforcement in general, much of the frustration and insecurity is justifiable. But I doubt that seeking to hang the police officer for something he may or may not have committed wouldn't be the answer that would appease these communal tensions, and nobody should expect that it should. We have to separate from what the Brown family wants and what is needed for the community in Ferguson to help it move on and better the situation. What if another shooting like this occurs? What then? Do we start protesting again?

The answer is to ensure that these types of incidents don't happen again but if they do then police officers should be equipped with proper recording devices that would protect them and the community they serve. I understand that sometimes cops need to make tough decisions on a split second and they have the power to shoot someone who is an immediate threat to them or the public at large. Whether officer Wilson was justified in shooting Michael Brown we will have to wait and see if the grand jury thinks it was or not.

This is more than just one black teen getting shot to death (or executed) by the police. We live in a society that values violence over anything else. Even within the black community you have black rappers venerating gang violence in their music videos. We see heterosexual men, both white and black, freaking out when a gay couple give each other a kiss because they are in love but get excited to see videos on World Star Hip-Hop showing a transgender woman being shot in the stomach. That is just the reality of facts right now and if the black community rightfully seeks justice they must realize that justice is only worth anything if peace and love can replace mistrust, anger, and hatred which are the social attributes that lead to the approval of physical violence and abuse (both by police and the public).

Though this site is mainly me bantering about this and that I cannot and will not condone physical violence and with this mild rant I just wanted to point out to everyone, to both sides of the Ferguson debate the realities of the society upon which we exist. If you wish to make changes we need to look further from this one incident and look at the broader problem of how society has indeed accepted and normalized violence whether real or fictionalized, whether big as all out war or small as in a shooting of Michael Brown.

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