I woke up this morning and made the mistake of reading my stream of facebook posts first thing. A bad habit Ive picked up since I got my new phone. First, I read a post about a friend of mine worried about the racial segregation in the Netherlands and its effect on his child. What really got me, was how many comments presented it as a fact that white Dutch kids will be bullied if they go to predominantly non-white schools there. What about the non-white Dutch kids when they are in the minority? They are never bullied or picked on? I find it hard to believe given the constant stream of overtly racist (and anti-muslim) comments I hear in Europe that its all so simple and one sided. For the record, everyone who has ever tried to bully me was white. Then I started reading the Ferguson posts. One of the first ones I came across was a post by someone who Ive known for 26 years or so, Ill call him Friend #1 for the purposes of this discussion. He repeatedly referred to protesters as trolls and joked about running them over (at least I hope it was a joke.) It really made me sick to my stomach. What made it worse was how most of the commentary posts were in support of friend 1s point of view and contained even worse comments/jokes. When my long time friend #1 was called out on his racism by another nearer and dearer friend, Ill call friend #2, I was horrified once again how most of the comments by friend #2 were discounted by other posters and friend #1 used his long time status as a soul DJ as some sort of defense against racism. After unfriending friend #1, and taking a moment to think, I got this to say. Im angry today because a young man was killed by another man who was in a position of authority over him. The reason why I was made angrier by the Grand Jury decision is this. A young man was killed by another man and there will be no trial to determine guilt or innocence. Thats right. NO TRIAL. A grand jury is just a hearing. A long complicated drawn out hearing but just a hearing nonetheless. Repeat. There was NO TRIAL. Despite being presented with several witnesses that claimed the young man was killed in circumstances that are tantamount to murder or at least manslaughter the grand jurors did not find sufficient cause to indict the police officer of any crime. Not even a charge of manslaughter was recommended. The police officer testified that he felt threatened. Some other witnesses back up his story and some contradict it. Same thing with the physical evidence. So by definition, if there is some ambiguity it would seem worth taking the case to trial. If there is some credible evidence against the Officer and there was, it should go to trial. This is because in a grand jury, people are just supposed to give testimony. They are not cross-examined aggressively like they would be in a trial. No one goes after a witness to check the validity of what they are saying. Officer Wilson was NEVER TRIED for killing Michael Brown. This leaves the impression that a young African American man is not worthy of a having a trial of his killer if he was killed by a police officer. This leaves the impression that a police officers testimony is inherently more credible than that of anyone else. This leaves the impression a white mans testimony is more credible than that of African Americans. This is another chapter in the horrid nightmare of race relations in America. Thats my opinion. I managed to say it without cursing or name calling. Which was hard for me, as those of you really know me, I can barely form a sentence without cursing. I also didnt make reference to any self serving links provided by various ideologically biased news services. I only apologize that it took me so many words to say my piece.
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 18:07:55 +0000
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