The whole Ferguson/Michael Brown situation has made me very, very sad this Thanksgiving.
I remember back when the Trayvon Martin incident occurred and I was outraged. Obviously, the murder of an unarmed teenager for the crime of acting like an angsty teenager was the most outrageous part, but also deeply troubling is all the apologetics from people who don't want to admit that we live in an unjust society: he shouldn't have been walking around at night in a hoodie, he shouldn't have fought the guy who was profiling him, etc... I think the most troubling one to me is when people point to his size and declare him a full-grown adult, conveniently forgetting every stupid thing they ever did as a teenager when their brains were still developing and hormones were surging through their systems.
Clearly, this applies to the Michael Brown case as well. Almost everyone out there on Facebook and the ugly world of the "comments section" has apparently read every line of testimony and knows for a FACT what happened. It's such BS. Even the people who were there have different accounts of what happened based on their filters and fears. We don't need armchair legal analysts to know that we live in an unjust society where black males are much more likely to be killed, incarcerated, arrested, pulled-over, questioned, etc.. for the same behaviors and crimes as their white counterparts. We have pretty clear cut statistics that demonstrate that.
With this case, instead of outrage I feel more of a deep sadness and fear. The difference, of course, is that I have my own Michael to look out for and the main difference between this face
I remember back when the Trayvon Martin incident occurred and I was outraged. Obviously, the murder of an unarmed teenager for the crime of acting like an angsty teenager was the most outrageous part, but also deeply troubling is all the apologetics from people who don't want to admit that we live in an unjust society: he shouldn't have been walking around at night in a hoodie, he shouldn't have fought the guy who was profiling him, etc... I think the most troubling one to me is when people point to his size and declare him a full-grown adult, conveniently forgetting every stupid thing they ever did as a teenager when their brains were still developing and hormones were surging through their systems.
Clearly, this applies to the Michael Brown case as well. Almost everyone out there on Facebook and the ugly world of the "comments section" has apparently read every line of testimony and knows for a FACT what happened. It's such BS. Even the people who were there have different accounts of what happened based on their filters and fears. We don't need armchair legal analysts to know that we live in an unjust society where black males are much more likely to be killed, incarcerated, arrested, pulled-over, questioned, etc.. for the same behaviors and crimes as their white counterparts. We have pretty clear cut statistics that demonstrate that.
With this case, instead of outrage I feel more of a deep sadness and fear. The difference, of course, is that I have my own Michael to look out for and the main difference between this face
and this face
is approximately 16 years (and a sweet hat).
Right now it seems like the focus on the topic is the "black rage", which is a great distraction from our real problem of systematic discrimination and injustice. The African Americans that I know actually seem a lot more weary than angry. They are tired of trying to explain this problem to the rest of us and getting denial and woefully inadequate analogies. They are so tired that I think if one more person says something like, "but my Irish great-grandparents experienced discrimination and they got over it," they are going to need to lay down for awhile.
I guess that means that some of the rest of us are going to have to stand up. I'm not sure what that means, to be honest, and I'm open to suggestions. Facebook battles seem fruitless and this blog is certainly not the answer considering it typically has an audience of one (Hi Mom!). I'm looking into organizations to financially contribute to and will try to be more challenging to statements of ignorance, even though engaging in this type of discourse is difficult for me. I like to keep things easy breezy and non-confrontational.
But really, it isn't all that challenging to say that American society has a deep problem with race that hasn't evaporated with the Obama presidency. We can all recognize that systematic injustice persists in our legal system and admitting this doesn't mean that we hate the police or condone looting and rioting. It means we see the problem and want to do better.
