On Ferguson (edit)

Edit at 2pm : some typos have been corrected and clarifications made.

Good Evening, Nice Lady,

I am still just waking up, having really slept in this morning, but I see your posts on FB and I can see that you are following the news coverage of Ferguson. It's upsetting any way you look at it, no matter what a person's views are, a very polarising and troubling situation.

As you know, I don't comment much on the news, and I have my reasons for not doing so. I've stated them before, and they largely have to do with the fact that the news cycle is something that is neverending, and one can find oneself sucked into it's energies, and a person can find their life negatively influenced in this way. This is an extreme simplification, of course, but I know you understand what I mean. To go into a dissertation about the complicated factors involved in an emotional entanglement with the news of the world would take me all day, and so I trust you know what I mean.

However, as I also always hasten to point out, I do indeed follow the news, and more closely than you might think. I just don't comment on it because it is not my focus. I've had to disentangle myself with the news and politics over the years because I am a very opinionated person, and when I was younger oftentimes I would spend great amounts of time stating my opinions and arguing/defending my positions on things. I used to describe myself, literally, as "as far Left as you can get". In those days I saw things in a clear cut way, in black and white (no pun intended). Everything was clear to me, and so were my opinions. Things were "one way" or "another", and to me there was no real middle ground.

But as the years went by, and I discovered myself in all kinds of situations in life - and also observing all kinds of situations - I noticed, to my surprise actually, that my views were beginning to modify, to develop an acknowledgement of nuances and grey areas in the judgements I formed. I was always quick with an opinion, but I suppose it was in my mid-to-late 30s when I began thinking and reconsidering my views on things, and in many cases witholding my opinions unless asked about them. Previously, I would state them unsolicited to anyone who would listen.

I am just telling you the way I was, and none of this preamble has any bearing on you whatsoever. You may be highly opinionated yourself, as might be expected of someone so thoughtful. We both know that very often, some of the very most highly opinionated people are also some of the most unthoughtful, unintelligent people around - dummies with ill considered "opinions" - but we also both know this is definitely not the case with you. Or me. So, you might be highly opinionated yourself, though you don't usually show it, but when you do, from what I have seen, it almost always has to do with compassionate matters involving people or animals. You are a very caring person, and you feel strongly about the things you care about. I think that is awesome; a wonderful characteristic indicative of a beautiful spirit, your spirit.

All of which is to say that it is no surprise you have thoughts about the Ferguson situation, and by posting them on FB, you may want to know what I think. After all, this is the way we communicate, and you don't normally make political posts. Ferguson isn't strictly political, though it falls generally into that spectrum. I usually respond to your FB posts as part of my daily blogs; that is a main part of our communication, and so I will respond to your posts from this morning, though I probably would not have commented on Ferguson otherwise, for reasons stated at the beginning of this blog.

You may not like what I have to say about the situation. All I ask is that you read carefully, listen to what I am saying, and know that I am only commenting about the available information. I wasn't there, so all I have to go by is what I've seen in the media, on the Internet and on TV.

Obviously, I am sorry the young man got killed. As a quick aside, I was once very much a pacifist, back in my extreme left days. I was 1000% against the death penalty, obviously against police brutality, and I still am and always will be against that. Few things in the world bother me as much as a bad cop, and we had a case right here in Southern California a year or so ago, in which a schizophrenic homeless man named Kelly Thomas (a probable thief) was provoked into reacting, during his arrest, by a monster cop, who then proceeded to beat him to death. It was a horrific case, and all caught on videotape, unlike the Ferguson case. Everybody could clearly see what happened to Kelly Thomas, including the jury, and yet the cop walked away. He was found not guilty. There were no riots, just outrage, great sadness, and a strong will to continue to seek justice. As to my former pacifism, I am no longer clear cut in my philosophy, and there are situations in which, if I were a younger man and called, I would indeed sign up to fight, such as against the ISIS monsters in the Middle East. And though I am still generally against the death penalty - and have voted against it - I have to admit that there are situations - horrific cases - where I certainly would shed no tear for the executed criminal monster. Some people are genuinely evil. So my former pacifism, while largely intact, has been modified. For while I despise violence, I realise that there are unfortunate times when it must be instituted as a response to an initial act of violence. What should the world have done about Hitler, for instance? The younger me would have said "don't let him rise to power in the first place". But the older me has learned that so many factors were involved, and it wasn't simple and clear cut. The fact was that he did rise to power, and so he had to be stopped, with a major use of force.

But getting back to Ferguson, as it compares to the Kelly Thomas case I described, I am not saying, re: Kelly Thomas, that "there were no riots because the people affected were mostly white". That is an opinion that, if stated, could be interpreted as racist or biased if stated in print, and not explained or clarified, and such a statement requires much explanation and clarification. There are always reasons people react the way they do, in any given situation, and those reasons have to do with causes both anthropological and social, and they are myriad. For instance, there are situations - as you yourself have pointed out on FB today - in which white people do indeed riot or destroy property - such as after a football victory, and one can only wonder at the ridiculous motivations for that reaction. I don't like to be on a high horse, but let's face it : there are a lot of stupid and violent people in the world, both black, white and also brown, yellow and any other skin color you can find. The news media lives off of these people. Let's also thank goodness that the majority of the world's people are nonviolent folks who just want to live in peace. I could talk or write for hours just on this aspect alone, but again, it is not my focus.

I am responding today specifically about the Michael Brown case, and I am responding based on the available information. I am making no assumptions, in other words.

We can see, on videotape, that this young man was, on that day at least, involved in a robbery in which he violently intimidated a much smaller store owner. That is clear, and not in dispute. Therefore, it's not a stretch to believe that he did indeed reach into the officer's car, and as the prosecutor pointed out last night, this is supported not only by the testimony of several witnesses (many of them black themselves), but also by the physical evidence, such as blood inside the police car and also bullet marks.

This young man apparently responded to the officer's pulling over to detain him, by blocking the officer's attempt to open his car door, and then reaching into his open window to accost him and perhaps take his gun. The evidence supports this, from what I can tell.

Well, that is about the most surefire way I can think of to get yourself killed by a police officer.

Reaching inside his car and grabbing him, striking him? Perhaps going for his gun? That is a fucking crazy thing to do. Straight fucking crazy. You are practically asking to get killed when you do that. So this kid, who had just committed a robbery in which he used his size to intimidate a store owner, tried something similar on a police officer, first by blocking his attempt to exit his car, then by reaching into it and accosting him. Not hard to believe, given the video evidence from the store, and the witness testimony.

The kid was apparently shot in the thumb in this altercation. Perhaps he was shot elsewhere on his body, too. There were two shots fired from inside the car. He then ran away. The police officer then gave chase. We expect police officers to be almost robotic in their emotions, to "just do what they are trained to do", but we also have to remember that they have nervous systems like anyone else, and you can be sure the officer's adrenaline was pumping at full tilt when he went in pursuit of Michael Brown.

Here is where the case becomes tricky, because at that point, an officer - no matter how badly rattled by the encounter - should proceed to make an arrest, in this case of young Michael Brown, who was not a martyr, not an angel, but a straight-up thug and criminal. Yes, I don't like police brutality, but I also don't like thugs, gangstas and criminals, and it is pretty clear - to me, anyway - that this young man was not a nice guy. Ideally, an officer should never react on his emotions, but fear is an emotion, as is shock, and you can be certain that the officer was both shocked and in fear based on what had just happened in his car. The whole thing happened very fast, in 90 seconds.

Still, in an ideal situation, an officer should be expected to make an arrest of a criminal who has assaulted him and has then run away. An ideal situation would have been for Officer Wilson to make that arrest. Then nobody would have even been talking about Michael Brown. He would have been just one more criminal deservedly sitting in jail.

But that's not what happened, and here, I only have the prosecutor's words of last night to go by. That prosecutor described witness testimony and physical evidence. One of the first witnesses the public heard from was the young man who was accompanying Michael Brown that day. He gave an account that indicated his friend was basically executed, for no real reason, by Officer Wilson. I'm sure you can find a video of his statement somewhere on the Internet. He was standing with his lawyer when he said it, and he sounded coached. In my opinion, it was likely one of the testimonies that were later discredited by the physical evidence, as indicated by the prosecutor. That kid's statement painted his friend Brown as an innocent and the officer as a straight up executioner, and didn't even mention the store robbery. There were many such false testimonies presented by the news media, who helped to work this situation up into the storm it has become.

But the physical evidence apparently corroborated, beyond a reasonable doubt, the testimonies of others, including several black citizens, who weren't publicized by the news media, who testified to the grand jury that Michael Brown stopped running, turned around, and then charged at the police officer. At this point, he may only have been shot in the thumb, and so would have been more or less at full strength to make such a charge.

In that situation, the officer has a split second to make a decision. It would be nice if Michael Brown had submitted to arrest for the robbery he committed, but he didn't. First he accosted the officer in his police car, and then, after initially fleeing, he turned and ran at the officer. Many witnesses testified to this (including black ones, which takes the "race card" out of play), and it is corroborated by the physical evidence. We also have videotape evidence from the store Brown robbed, which proves he was not shy about using his size to intimidate.

You don't accost a police officer in his car if you don't want to get killed, and you don't charge at a police officer if you don't want to get killed. It's that simple. Michael Brown should have submitted to arrest, but he didn't. It doesn't matter if Darren Wilson fired one shot to kill him, or if he emptied his weapon. He had already been subject to almost having that weapon taken from him, and finally he was being charged at by a very large young man. So he used deadly force, which as a police officer he is trained to do in certain situations.

It would have been great if there had been enough officers on the scene to subdue Michael Brown. But there weren't. The was only Officer Wilson. And what Michael Brown did - his own actions - got him killed.

Pure and simple.

If you don't want to get killed, for starters, don't rob a fucking store. He's lucky the owner didn't pull a gun on him. He could have been killed right in the store.

And if you don't want to get killed, do not assault a police officer. That is as crazy as it gets.

You know, I post a lot of videos, in my nightly songs, of black musical artists singing songs I grew up with and love. After The Beatles, The Supremes are the first group I can remember hearing. I love that music so much, and as a kid, I loved the black culture of the 1960s. It was so artistic, so creative and expressive, and the artists themselves were so talented. The music was melodic, exciting, soulful and beautiful, and it expressed the full range of human emotion, as all great art forms do. I loved the look of that era, The Age Of Aquarius as they called it, with groups like The Fifth Dimension and Sly And The Family Stone, with uplifting songs about "beautiful balloons" and "everyday people". Their clothing too, inspired by 60s fashion but with perhaps an African twist, was stylish and exotic. So many songs and groups did I love from that era, in the black culture.

Even the protest movement was educated and thoughtful, if aggressive. Right here at CSUN, the black students of America were on the vanguard of positive change. Back then, the school was called San Fernando Valley State College, and when I was in elementary school, right next to campus, there were many times in 1968 and 1969, when we had to be taken home on buses, due to student protests next door at the College. One time, the black students occupied the faculty building, where the office of the college president was located. They staged a sit-in there, which lasted a couple days, until their grievances were heard. As a result, they achieved positive change, which included a full black studies department, and a black student union. And they did this without ever pulling a gun on anyone. Black leaders then, too, were men of giant character and education, like Martin Luther King and Ralph Abernathy.

What a great time it was for black America, and white America, too, because we all were the richer for the contributions of that wonderful culture.

But then something happened along the road of progress. Martin Luther King was killed, yes, but it was much bigger than that.

What happened was that black culture was replaced by nigga culture. That's their word, not mine. Let's call it gangsta culture in order to be more polite.

Yep, "beautiful balloons" were replaced by "bling-bling". "Sexy ladies" became "bitches and hos". Hoop earrings and beautiful afro hairdos were replaced by tattoos and butt-pants.

Instead of the KKK and racist rednecks calling them "niggers", the new black youth began calling each other that name. You didn't just hear it in their rap "songs", but right here on the CSUN campus, where once more cultured language emanated.

What a grand fucking shame it all has been, this God-awful, rotten-to-the-core gangsta culture. It has pervaded all walks of American life, and has been exported to the world now, really. You can see white dumbells in Europe now, throwing gang signs, getting tattoos and wearing sideways baseball caps. And listening to that soul destroying "music" with it's shameful lyrics. That this poisonous culture has endured for so long as a pop phenomenon - twenty five years now - is mindblowing to me. It's also profoundly sad, and a mystery.

Don't people want something better?

How long is it gonna continue? For another 25 years? 50? 100? Will our great-great grandchildren be laughing rat-a-tat-tat, mindlessly, like Beavis and Butthead, using a limited vocabulary made up mostly of slang curse words, and listening to the overamplified bass-bottom of rotten hip hop music while they twerk their booties?

Please God no! Please God, make it stop. Help us to make this rotten pop culture - this gangsta culture - stop poisoning us, before it's too late.

It poisoned Michael Brown, and his parents didn't have the effectiveness, and perhaps the wherewithall, to prevent it. Maybe they didn't try to.

Now he's dead.

What a shame.

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So, that's my take, Elizabeth. You may agree or disagree, in part(s), or as a whole, but I thought I'd state my take on the issue, and there you have it.

I'll write more later. I Love You and You Rule, and let's thank God for all the good people of all colors and for all the good things in this world.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxoxoxoxoxo  :):)