WASHINGTON – It is truly disheartening to watch the aftermath of the Ferguson Grand Jury decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson on any possible charge, (homicide, manslaughter, or anything else), related to his killing of Michael Brown last August.
The facts are clear
By now all the facts are clear. After lengthy proceedings, hours and hours of testimonies, and the presentation of physical evidence, the Ferguson Grand Jury concluded that Michael Brown, a Black young man who had just robbed a store, got into a confrontation with officer Wilson, tried to seize his gun, did not obey any of the officer’s commands, and then attacked him. In order to prevent physical injury to himself, officer Wilson shot Brown and killed him.
The Grand Jury concluded that officer Wilson followed procedures and killed Brown in self-defense. This being the case, there is no “probable cause” about any crime having been committed. Hence the decision not to put Wilson on trial.
Again, the process is most transparent. Now that the Grand Jury has concluded its work, all the proceedings and all the testimonies have been made public. Anybody can go on-line and review them.
End of all speculations
Well, you would think that this is enough to assuage any concerns and put to rest all the wild speculations and false accounts of what actually happened that day in August.
No, Michael Brown had not surrendered when he was shot. No, he did not have his arms raised. No, he was not shot in the back. Indeed, “eye-witnesses” who had claimed all of this had to subsequently admit that they “had ben mistaken”. In fact, they had made all of this up.
Several other eye-witnesses, all of them African-Americans, corroborated the account given to the Grand Jury by officer Wilson. Furthermore, the autopsy results and other physical evidence also supported his story.
It makes no difference
Well, guess what, none of this makes any difference whatsoever. Most African-Americans believe what they want to believe. Their understanding of “what happened” , before and after the Grand Jury deliberations, is that Michael Brown is yet another innocent victim of White police brutality. This killing is yet another sad episode in the long history of the victimization of Black Americans.
All Black leaders, commentators and lawyers who appeared on TV stuck to the script. All of them believe that the Grand Jury proceedings were artfully manipulated, so that officer Wilson would go free. The fix was in from the very beginning. Therefore, this has nothing to do with real justice.
Injustice
And this travesty is in line with what we knew already. There are just too many Black victims of White police brutality. Michael Brown is just another one in a long list. And the very fact that there are so many young Blacks males in prison is evidence that they have been targeted. Indeed, Michael Brown’s mother said that she is convinced that officer Wilson that day was up to no good. He was on some sort of hunt, and sadly her son was the victim.
From Los Angeles to New York
After the Ferguson Grand Jury decision not to indict, we saw rallies across America, from Los Angeles to New York, in which outraged young Blacks marched with their hands raised, shouting “Do not shoot!”; this way showing that they buy the false claim that Michael Brown was an innocent guy who had surrendered, and was nonetheless shot in cold blood by an evil policeman.
How do we move forward?
Given all this, how do we move forward? If we cannot even agree on the facts, even after they have been carefully ascertained through a meticulous and now totally open judicial proceeding, how can we agree on anything else?
Fictitious narrative
What is most disheartening here is that the Black community has created this fictitious narrative of endless victimization as a way to avoid serious reflections on the roots of its crisis.
Indeed, it would be most inconvenient to admit that, yes, far too many young Black males are in fact criminals. And quite often they are criminals because they grow up in dysfunctional homes, with plenty of drugs and no books. These kids –over 70% of them raised by single mothers with no education– learn almost nothing attending bad schools, and very often do not finish any school. Therefore they become young adults having no marketable skills that would get them a decent job.
It is all about racism
This is the sad reality. It is indeed so sad that it is preferable to ignore it by accepting the escapist narrative that exonerates the Black community. “Whatever our problems as Black Americans, at the root of all of them you will always find racism and injustice”.