The violent events in Ferguson last night were horrible. Indications are that the true protesters were not at fault for the gunfire and mayhem. Nevertheless, it is past time to loudly declare what many folks, Black folks especially, have said in the privacy of their homes; Michael Brown’s death was tragic but he does not belong in the set of victims that include Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Walter Scott. At times I cannot fathom why the surviving relatives of those other true victims of injustice decide to appear on stage with Michael Brown’s relatives. Yes, I saw that M. Brown’s father called for peace prior to yesterday’s rally. But M. Brown’s father also reportedly stated that the shooter last night was a close friend of M. Brown. If that is true (the press gets it wrong on a regular basis these days), it’s just more evidence that M. Brown was a freight train getting up speed and headed in the wrong direction as far as community values and personal behavior and responsibility goes. His death should be mourned…but he is no Tamir Rice.
I just read the lengthy article about Darren Wilson in The New Yorker.
While I feel that he should not have killed Brown, and I would not defend his actions, I also agree that Brown was not, alas, in the same class of victim as the others.
I have to agree with you.
It’s pretty sad that we have so many young Black men and boys that lose their lives at the hands of the police that we can start putting the value of their lives in tiers.
Personally, I find that including M. Browns death to show injustice distracts from the message the black community is trying to make.
It’s pretty sad that there’s tons of sympathy for some thug who knocked over a convenience store just a short time prior. And no, thug is not a racist word, it’s a description for someone who doesn’t know how to behave in civilized society. (clue: when you walk into a convenience store, you pay for what you take and you don’t shove the store owner)
State of Emergency declared in Ferguson today. Dr. Cornell West at the head of protest at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Nonsense. Tragic nonsense. There’s no other word for it.
We’d all like to keep our cause clean and not be dragged down by the idiots that accrete to it. Not much chance of it, with something like this, but…
… thumbs up for pointing out the difference, LW.
Police brutality remains an issue in this country, and the black community remains a target for open discrimination. However, the lists of casualties who were hardly choirboys but real thugs pushing the envelope on a regular basis will not bring about changes. A list that mixes Brown, Trayvon Martin with Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and Walter Scott has only few common denominators. Were the first two really innocent victims of crimes or victims of the toxic environment in which they were raised by questionable characters? Or victims at all?
For the police union to declare the day Officer Wilson Day doesn’t help.
has the media apologized for perpetuating the “hands up don’t shoot” narrative?
or do they not care that they threw fuel on the fire and are clearly responsible for a lot of the damage that was caused?
Hate to think that Officer Wilson Day is responsible for the attack on police. Surely not.
Beside the town being in tatters, Wilson’s life ain’t what it used to be… and that’s the politest way to put it. Officer Wilson Day wouldn’t be in poor taste, unless the shooting of Michael Brown had been other than what both a grand jury and a federal investigation found.
Question for you, hayden - is a narrative of mistreatment diminished by the inclusion of false ones?
Tiers?
I wasn’t aware that grand juries and the feds looked at any question other than whether or not they were justifiable. Take it up with them.
Unlike Michael Brown, Travon Martin walked into a convenience store, quietly paid for his items, in no way roughed up the clerk, and was walking back to the legitimate home of his father with the intention of watching the second half of an NBA playfoff game. He was talking with his girlfriend on his cell phone. He was not looking for trouble. Trouble came looking for him in the form of a gun toting vigilante with a mind full of racist assumptions and a super-hero complex. How anyone could place him in the same category with Michael Brown is beyond me.
Something else that hasn’t escaped my notice is the fact that unarmed Travon Martin had been widely vilified and labeled a “thug” who “got what he deserved”, despite the fact that he was the one gunned down by an armed aggressor. I’ve yet to read where Dylann Roof, someone who shot nine people point-blank and in cold blood, is characterized even half as mercilessly as was poor Trayvon Martin. Certainly, I’ve never seen the word “thug” affixed to Roof’s name. Mostly Roof has been used as a convenient prop in the latest round of arguments for better gun control, and for the removal of the CBF on government grounds, ancillary at best. I can’t count how many times I’ve seen people call him “misguided”, as if he were not entirely accountable for his actions, as if he too, were some kind of “victim” of twisted ideology. How is it that Dylann Roof is afforded a humanity that Trayvon Martin is yet to receive?
Well, you know, considering the people mentioned in the original post as individuals, not as some stereotypical people under a domino effect has a foundation in something. Lemme see… something about judging people “not by the color of their skin, but the content of their character…”
You ignore so much, such as the fact that Martin was a delinquent who had been suspended from school three times. School authorities caught him with a backpack of jewelry and a long-handled screwdriver, which was identified as a “burglary tool.” Did it ever occur to you that he might have been “casing” some of the empty homes when Zimmerman saw him. House burglary was, after all, his stock in trade.
We’ve all heard about how poor Trayvon was going to the store to buy some Arizona Iced Tea and Skittles. In fact, his public media accounts recount him crowing of the joys of mixing Arizona Watermelon Iced Tea, Skittles, and Robitussin DM to make a legal version of “Lean,” a mixture usually made with a sweet drink plus codeine and promethazine. The autopsy showed that he had heart damage from Dextromethorphan consumption. Excessive serotonin caused by dextromethorphan damages the heart, exactly as fenfluramine, of the diet drug combo “fen-phen” did. (Most media, in a fit of political correctness, never reported on the fact that Martin was carrying “watermelon” iced tea. It really doesn’t matter, but it shows that the left-wing media is unwilling to tell the truth.
Travon Martin’s father is nicknamed “Fruit.” There were text messages on Martin’s phone with some person named “Fruit” in which plans were being made to get Martin an illegal gun.
We know that Martin’s phone and other social media had videos of him staging and refereeing street fights. All evidence is that he viciously attacked Zimmerman for daring to get out of his car. Zimmerman had one and only one way to save his life, and that was to shoot his attacker, which he did. And I, for one, am glad the guy is dead. Nobody will have to worry about being violently assaulted by him ever again.
Terrorist is a more accurate word.
People like Martin and Brown were called thugs because they were violent individuals. Do you think an AA male living in a well-to-do town would be called a thug as well if he was shot by a cop, @poetsheart ?
Care to back up all that character assassination with credible references from reputable sources, Earl Van Dorn? You’re “glad the guy is dead”? You think George Zimmerman did society a favor? Do you wish Dylann Roof was dead as well? Or did he too do society a favor?
Seriously, EVD? Cite some reputable sources for those assertions. Til you do, I’m with poets heart that Trayvon Martin is in a different “class” than Michael Brown.
DonnaL and I have had this discussion before. Two things can be true at once.
Trayvon Martin was a troubled young man with a documented history of bad behavior. In fact, he was a thug.
However, the mistakes one makes at 17 never represent the totality of a life, and none of his mistakes indicated in any way that Trayvon was beyond redemption and couldn’t have turned things around and had a very good life if he hadn’t, you know, been killed at 17. And as PoetsHeart pointed out, it was his murderer who sought trouble that night and if Zimmerman had stayed in his house minding his business, maybe Trayvon would have had the chance to turn his life around.
So it is both true that at that point in time, Trayvon was a thug, and it is simultaneously true that he was gunned down in the street like a dog by a violent scourge to society. Trayvon is in a different class than Michael Brown because Zimmerman couldn’t have known anything about Trayvon other than the color of his skin, so for all Zimmerman knew, Trayvon could have been a choir boy on the path to sainthood, so Trayvon’s prior life experiences are not relevant to the discussions of his death.
Nothing would have pleased me more than to have seen Dylan Roof catch a bullet before he had killed anyone. Roof isn’t just a thug, he’s a psychopath who knew that what he was doing was wrong but he did it anyway.
I would be more than glad to provide cites to every fact I stated about Trayvon Martin, provided you tell me which item you believe to be untrue.