A friend of mine shared my long post from last night in which I reflected on the meaning of the grand jurys decision not to indict Darren Wilson on any counts for his killing Michael Brown, an unarmed young African American. One of her FB friends whom I do not know responded. Since his response was addressed to me and the words are his response to my public post, I will not hide his name as I copy and paste here his thoughts on that post: John Long writes: Paul, no offense, but I believe your paragraphs above are in fact racist and myopic, and are yet in disregard for the rule of law and the presentation of the actual facts of the case. You have elevated yourself to a higher moral position, and from that perch it is indeed difficult to see accurately. America is far from perfect and our legal system is far from perfect. I would encourage you to spend some time living in almost any other country in the world and experience the racial/legal climates there. It would help you a bit with your perspective, and might keep you from extrapolating the ungodly behavior of a single irresponsible individual into an indictment against the best legal/political system on the planet, which indictment itself sounds quite a bit like the very racism that you decry. Lawlessness has consequences, and Mr. Brown could easily have avoided the circumstances that led to his death...easily. He assumes I have been sheltered from the way the rest of the world works though I have lived in then West Germany, the Socialist Republic of Romania, Japan, and Jordan and have traveled widely in the now former Communist countries and the Middle East, as well as in Western Europe. I have observed and occasionally experienced bigotry as it expresses itself in places beyond our borders. But I share his words not to correct his mistakes but to show how a very broad swath of white America thinks. Namely, that it is racist to name racism, that victims of the racist system are to blame for their own deaths, and that it is anti-American to point out the systemic racism that expresses itself in our legal and law-enforcement systems. And he also speaks from the other side of this mouth, calling Darren Wilson in effect a bad apple who in no way reflected our system. Simple, unvarnished data gives the lie to that claim, as does the non-indictment of Wilson. Wilson was not indicted because Wilson did, in fact, act within the accepted boundaries of the system that hired him. He was not a rogue cop. He was just a cop doing his job. So says the grand jury.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 22:12:01 +0000
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