As has been pointed out many, many times recently, when dozens of young Black men a week get killed by other Black men, it doesn't even make a ripple in the Black Lives Matter crowd. I once saw the following one-paragraph summation in the Chicago paper on about page 32: "A 16-year-old youth was killed Saturday night when he was stabbed in the head with a screwdriver by his friend in a fight over who would get to drive the car they had just stolen."(Screwdrivers kill. Clearly, they should be banned. Not for nothing is my house a Screwdriver-Free Zone.)
But let that same "16-year-old youth" (who could easily be 6'2" and 250 lbs.) get shot by a cop of a different color, pursuing the stolen car and it's "he only had a screwdriver and some Skittles!" So let's revisit the original incident where this year-long round of riots all began. I have a few additional thoughts on the Michael Brown disaster if you will bear with me. They are not amusing ones, I'm sorry to say. Some days there's just nothing funny to say, your mission as a Friday humorist, notwithstanding. Next week, I promise.
Near the end of the Passover Seder, the celebrants sing a song called "Dayenu" which means "It would have been enough." It goes on for roughly as long as I was in labor, (17 hours, in case it comes up on a quiz show) but the idea of it is a hymn of praise and thanks to the Almighty saying, "If you had just brought us out of Egypt" Dayenu. It would have been enough. "If you would have only parted the Red Sea," Dayenu. It would have been enough. "If you had only given us the Torah." Dayenu. You get the idea.
This song came unbidden to my mind as I thought about all the chances Michael Brown had to save his own life.
If he had only shot some buckets or played a video game instead of getting high and deciding that filching some smokes from a convenience store was a bright idea, he would be alive. At least until the next time he decided to commit a crime. Dayenu.
If The Gentle Giant had not decided as a parting shot to rough up the store clerk who was half his size. Maybe the clerk wouldn't even have called in the theft. What's a few cigars? Dayenu.
If, after stealing and assaulting, he had just walked away as unobtrusively as a 300-lb. Man can and not swaggered down the middle of the street, he would be alive today. If, when the officer approached him in his car, he had answered politely, and moved out of the street, he would be alive today. Dayenu.
If, when the officer approached him in his car and noticed that he fit the description of the shoplifter who assaulted the store clerk, he had said, "I'm sorry, officer, I was loaded and acted stupid. Here's the cigars and I want to apologize to the clerk," he would be alive today. Almost certainly he would have been able to plead down the assault charge to 5th degree and if he returned the stolen merchandise, they would have let that go, too. "Justice" today is all about plea-bargaining. And several hundred "last chances."
If, once he made his decision to go after the cop, he had slugged him once and not grabbed at the gun, he would be in seriously deep do-do, but probably still alive. Now, he's got assaulting an officer to go with shoving the clerk and the petty theft, but Officer Wilson was clearly no hothead. If Brown backs up, hands up, as the narrative pretends to go, and says, "I'm sorry; I'm sorry, that was stupid, I won't resist any further," he is probably alive.
If, after he grabs for the gun, it goes off, and he begins to run, he stops, turns, raises his hands and goes down to his knees or prone on the ground, waiting to be arrested, he might get roughed up a bit upon being "helped" into the squad car, but he is alive.
Even after he charges again and again and is shot multiple times, if he had stopped, gone to the ground with his hands locked behind his head, he is probably alive, headed for a hospital at taxpayer expense and then warehoused for a lot of his life, also at taxpayer expense. Apparently, it was the final head shot that killed him.
A senseless pointless crime. Cigars that could have been purchased for a few lousy dollars. Compounded by escalating stupidity of responses on Brown's part. A young man, with people who loved him, is dead. Another young man's life and career are in tatters. A town is in misery. Businesses are looted and burned. The social fabric is rent once again. The forces of division and evil are doing their best to widen the rift from the highest reaches of political power to looting thugs - yes, thugs! - who just couldn't live without that can of purloined Pringles.
For awhile there, morons were invading brunch places and confronting white people who had nothing to do with Mr. Brown or any other dead criminal of any color. The plague spreads. To Baltimore. To Texas. Where next? The ginned-up, sometimes hired, rage is stoked - for political gain, for jockeying for position, for profit in "Hands up" t-shirts; for fame on the talk shows; for a platform for Sharpton. To keep Black voters angry and mobilized. For professional race-baiters to write about as evidence of white people's endemic racism. Ah yes, my healing President, it's just in our DNA. Since you are half-white, how's that racist DNA going for you?
Dayenu.
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The Lies at the Base of "Black Lives Matter"
The "Black Lives Matter" Movement took root a little more than a year ago in Ferguson, Mo. A white policeman, Darren Wilson, shot a blameless and unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, as Brown had his hands up, trying to surrender (hence the Movement's first slogan, "Hands Up, Don't Shoot"). Thereafter, Wilson walked up to Brown, now prone, and, as noted in stories briefly recounted in this New Yorker article, shot him in the back.
Or so is the fable. It's a pack of lies, and was from the day it started. The point of BLM was never to tell the truth, so when the truth came out -- as it did in two grand jury investigations, including one by Eric Holder's Justice Department -- it was dismissed. The point was always something different: To intimidate the police and thus benefit criminals.
There's evidence that it's worked. Police work has become more fraught. Some cops say they're pulling back. When the State's Attorney indicts the police and the city's mayor says rioters must be given "space to destroy," what were we expecting? We should have been expecting, e.g., Baltimore, and a spike in murders coast-to-coast, which is what we got and are getting.
The wretched irony in this is, of course, that black lives do matter, and that blacks, who disproportionately bear the brunt of poverty, depend more than better-off whites for the basic protection policing provides. In part for that reason, I repeat the following entry on PowerLine, a bitterly humorous tribute to the insidious deceit and tragic carnage of "Black Lives Matter."
I am seeking clarity concerning your words in the second paragraph above, Bill. Is it your assertion that the "point" of the Black Lives Matter movement has "always" been to "benefit criminals"?
I really do not want to be putting words in your mouth --- and I especially share your concern that the BLM movement seems far more concerned when cops shoot young black men than when other young black men do the shooting --- but I am trying to understand with some precision the full nature and basis of your criticism of the BLM movement here.
Doug --
There is an ancient and honorable jury instruction to the effect that "the members of the jury may infer that a person intends the natural and probable consequences of his acts."
The BLM Movement intended (and intends) to cow the police (believing, or claiming the believe, that the police are a racist occupying army). The natural and probable consequence of cowing the police is to benefit criminals. We saw this graphically illustrated in Baltimore, Ferguson and other cities when the police were cowed and rioting, arson and violence ensued.
Those are the facts. I will leave readers to draw their own conclusions. I have drawn mine. I will add only that the intent to benefit criminals is consistent with the view, insisted upon for decades on the Left, that criminals are actually victims -- victims of sickness, poor childhoods, societal callousness, etc.
Doug --
I'll say one more word in response to your last sentence, which in relevant part was, "I am trying to understand with some precision the full nature and basis of your criticism of the BLM movement here."
As I believe I made clear in the original post, the heart of my criticism here is that the BLM Movement took root in a pack of racist lies against white officer Darren Wilson. The lies were specifically that (1) Wilson rousted Michael Brown for no reason except (probably) racial animus; (2) Wilson shot Brown while Brown had his hands up trying to surrender; (3) thereafter, as Brown lay on the ground, Wilson completed the murder by shooting Brown in the back.
Two questions for you: Is there any part of that that you don't understand; and is there any part where you think I'm wrong and the BLM narrative is right?
The BLM movement started, I think, with George Zimmerman's acquittal, but the Michael Brown shooting certainly gave it more momentum. I do not disagree that the facts as investigated did not support the BLM narrative in the Brown death. But subsequent cases caught on video, in various jurisdictions, has allowed BLM to make their case for the claim that some cops in some case seem troublesomely eager to shoot at unarmed black men when the circumstances do not seem to justify the use of lethal force.
I am bothered that the Brown case remains a focal point for BLM discourse when it seems many other cases more justifiably reflect their concern. I am also troubled that the movement seems more concerned with symptoms rather than causes of poor police/citizen relations. But I do not think it fair to assert that the point of BLM movement is to benefit criminals any more than it would be fair to say that the point of the Bill of Rights is to benefit criminals.
-- I guess I will just repeat what I said before: The BLM Movement intended (and intends) to cow the police, believing, or claiming to believe, that the police are a racist occupying army. The natural and probable consequence of cowing the police is to benefit criminals.
As I also noted, criminality has indeed spiked in a number of cities where the police have been cowed.
-- "I am bothered that the Brown case remains a focal point for BLM discourse when it seems many other cases more justifiably reflect their concern."
But BLM itself chooses its focus, right? And it continues to choose, indeed to shout, "Hands Up, Don't Shoot" knowing that this is false.
What am I to make of a movement that chooses a known falsehood as its slogan?
-- Zimmerman's acquittal was a foregone conclusion to anyone who cared to understand the governing state law in Florida. The prosecution bore the burden of proving BRD the absence of self-defense. It failed. I don't have to like it. What I like is irrelevant. You follow the law -- THAT is what protects the accused (speaking of the Bill of Rights).
By the way, where, in the Zimmerman and Wilson cases, were our liberal friends who in so many other contexts shout from the rooftops that we can't try cases in the press and must respect due process? I guess the Bill of Rights is a sometime thing. When mandatory Political Correctness is running the show, the Bill of Rights can get lost.
-- "I do not disagree that the facts as investigated did not support the BLM narrative in the Brown death."
It's a lot worse than merely "did not support." The facts show that the BLM narrative was a fabricated calumny against Darren Wilson, because he was (a) white and (b) a policeman. It was designed to, and did, destroy his career for doing exactly what you or I would have done (had we had our wits about us) when confronted by an aggressive 18 year-old bigger than most NFL linemen.