by CJ Clark, Featured Contributor
WE ARE THE United States of America, or are we? Do we want to unite, or do we want to divide?
We have a police force. They are trained. They are, for the most part, good at what they do and they put themselves in harm’s way to keep us safe. We rely on them to respond when we are in trouble.
We have laws. Sometimes they are inconvenient. Sometimes we disagree that something should be a law. But we live in a country where there are appropriate ways to change laws, if they really aren’t in our best interest.
We have a government that, granted is a bit dysfunctional, but we have safeguards against corruption.
Will there be police officers who do the wrong thing, or worse, do something very, very bad? Absolutely. There is a long history of this, but in most cases they have been held accountable. Are there personal reasons that a cop would do something bad? They are human after all, so probably.
So we can agree then, that for the most part, we value our police, we abide by our laws, and we have relative freedoms because of the infrastructure of our government. That is the United States of America.
So why has a small town in Missouri been the focal point of every news station including the BBC?
I don’t know the facts – I’ll just put that out there. The reality is the facts are still under investigation. But there are some details I might consider as I muse about the incident in Ferguson. I suspect Ferguson isn’t a hotbed of controversy. Like all cities they probably have their differences and flare ups, but probably have not experienced anything like what happened last week.
So the Police Chief may stumble around a bit until he gets “expertise” from others who have experience with such catastrophes. Probably LOTS of advice about what to say, what to release, how to handle the situation.
Likewise, the city government probably – I’m just assuming now – doesn’t have a lot of tools in their tool kit to deal with the situation that has occurred, so they’re doing the best they can. Until, of course, the “experts” ride in on their white horses to help control a situation that has now become an international media circus.
So here’s my question. Why did the fact that a police officer killed a young black man in Ferguson MO become a metaphor for the continued plight of black America against the big, bad USA?
We don’t know the facts. But I will go out on a limb to say that the young black man, and the situation he found himself in is not representatives of every young black man in the country. And I will hypothesize that the policeman who killed him was not thoughtfully taking up a sword against black America.
Whether the policeman took the action because the young man was black, we may never know. But he was one person, taking action in a situation in which most of us would not think clearly, and had a horrible, terrible ending taking the life of a young person.
What ever happened to presumed innocent until proven guilty? Yes, that question applied to shooting the young man as well. But that’s my point. It is the action of one person against another that needs to be investigated and resolved.
It is not the action of the police force of the United States of America against the entire young, black population.
I mourn for the young man, and for the young man’s family. I mourn for the police officer that will carry the burden of killing another human being for the rest of his life. I mourn for a country that lays blame to a wider audience than deserves the blame.
We are the United States of America, but I am wondering if the objectives of all of the interest groups that want to make us believe that they are downtrodden and abused are doing more to divide America.
Perhaps there is another way. Suppose we were to reach out to the grief-stricken parents, consoling rather than inciting them. Suppose we were to withhold judgment until the facts are available, rather than automatically assuming that the white police officer shot a black youth in cold blood. Suppose if the investigation uncovers evidence that the white police officer did, in fact, shoot a black youth when the youth had his hands up, we try the officer within the parameters of our courts and he receives an appropriate punishment.
Suppose we – the whites and the black in the community – work together to seek out where there might be bias, help educate those who are biased, and begin building together a world where no one has to be concerned for his child’s safety.
Would that not be more like the United States of America?
