All politics is local, and its human nature to be more invested with those closes to you. So to that end, I hold less derision for the people of Ferguson, and what appears to be in all fairness, a significant minority of whom have chosen to riot. It happens, its not right but as you said, at ground zero of this, I can have some understandings and I was on record earlier in this thread critqiuing the FPD for a lack of transparency. And I was initially a defender of Brown, albeit with a limited field of information.
Had we known he was responding to the crime (assuming this is supported with logs)
Had we known ballistics show all front entry wounds (supported by multiple autopsies)
the snowball might have slowed earlier.
I know a nature of the investigation dictates a deliberate pace, but likewise the perception of shooting an unarmed man with conflicting stories probably deserved to be addressed earlier.
So I'm, in a relative sense, cool, with the people of Ferguson.
But there is the broader field of people around the country, that like you and I, are not in the middle of this, invested, etc, that still choose to ignore the facts of THIS case.
For some reason, that Lena Dunham tweet, about the courage of Browns family or whatever the hell she had to say. And it goes on and on with several celebrities, likewise detached, all presumably who who are "anti-bullying", showing no regard for how Brown trampled through the store and chose to attack a policeman. We ARE removed, these people CAN see the testimony wherein as I understand 58 people say the same thing and 2 dispute it, and science disproves THEM. A liberal community with less emotion and basically choose to ignore them.
I don't like doing left/right stuff, I'm libertarian-ish, fiscal conservative social conservative, and this story is bringing to light an important issue with an awful core that only threatens the message. Brown is NOT worthy of nationwide protest, why NYU students are tying up traffic in NYC for this idiot, its so far beyond me, I can't even comprehend it.
I read or heard something in the last year, forget where now, maybe in a Gladwell book, that six months before Rosa Parks, a young black, unmarried, pregnant woman was the first to challenge the back of the bus rules. She was tired, she was pregnant and she was also not a good story to sell. Six months later, grandmotherly saint Rosa Parks takes HER stand and she becomes a face and a message that everyone can connect with without judgement and say "hey, this ISN'T right" and civil rights explodes.i
I don't know if we need something as big as the civil rights movement right now, but power, in every way, has been bled from the people in this country, and its probably worth attempting to reclaim some. The right face could have been a part of that. Sadly, perhaps, the right martyr.
I just don't see Mike Brown as that guy.
