2.22 Race as a Means to Power: The Michael Brown Prosecution
On Aug. 9, 2014, an 18-year-old black man named Michael Brown scuffled with a police officer and was shot in Ferguson Missouri. In the days that followed, angry blacks rioted and looted stores there. Six years later, Shelby Steele and his son Eli made a documentary about what happened.
| Shelby Steele |
Eli Steele |
There are links to the documentary at https://whatkilledmichaelbrown.com/ . I think you can watch if free by clicking here. The trailer is below.
A reporter from the Daily Signal interviewed Eli Steele about the movie. He said "my father, in about five minutes into the film, asked, “Was it really racism that killed Michael Brown?” That, for us, was the focus of the film, because we wanted to know: Was there another reason? Was there another possibility? In the culture that we live in today, with critical race theory, we are now told to view everything racially. If you have a disparity between two groups", we are told " it must be race."
Different people told different stories about what happened. On person said that officer Darren Wilson told Michael Brown to put his hands up and Michael Brown did after which Darren shot him in the back. Another source said that Wilson was coming off another case in the neighborhood on Aug. 9 when he ordered Michael Brown and his friend Dorain Johnson to stop walking in the middle of the road because they were obstructing traffic. “They ignored him and the officer started to get out of the car to tell them to move," the source said. "They shoved him right back in, that’s when Michael Brown leans in and starts beating Officer Wilson in the head and the face" and fractures Wilson's eye socket. Brown tried to grab Wilson's gun which then went off. Brown started to walk away according to the account, prompting Wilson to draw his gun and order him to freeze. Brown, the source said, raised his hands in the air, and turned around saying, "What, you're going to shoot me?" At that point, the source told FoxNews.com, the 6-foot-4, 292-pound Brown charged Wilson, prompting the officer to fire at least six shots at him
Investigators looked at the evidence and it corroborated that Wilson was acting in self defense. This didn't stop people from rioting, they just assumed the investigators didn't lock up Wilson because they were against black people. Darren Wilson was interviewed about what happened. Here is his story.
The Obama administration did not improve the situation. The Attorney General appointed by the Obama administration, Eric Holder came to Ferguson and said “I am the attorney general of the United States. But I am also a black man.” When you represent an office like that, you have to represent all Americans. How is it any different than the attorney general going into Mississippi in the 1950s and basically saying, “I’m coming here as a white man." The message blacks would hear is he's coming to defend Darren Wilson because Darren Wilson is white whether Darren was guilty or not. They would be outraged. The message Eric Holder was sending was "I'll get those white people because they are white and I am black." When Holder came in the very first thing that he did was tell the mayor of Ferguson, who happens to be white, that he was not allowed to come to the meeting with all the other mayors of neighboring towns, who were black.
The problem with blaming whites and not facing up to black guilt when blacks are guilty is that you don't do anything to improve the behavior of guilty elements in the black community. You don't do anything to improve the situation of blacks. Blacks rioting and looting and burning down local stores because they believe something that isn't true doesn't empower blacks in the long run. Teaching blacks to hate whites doesn't help blacks. Sure they might carry home some loot but in the end the store is gone, the jobs at the store are gone, the goods of the store are gone and the taxes the store owners and employees paid for services in the community are gone. More importantly good will from many in the white community is gone and is replaced by fear and anger. The man in the picture below feels victorious as he watches a store burn down but is he really better off ?
The politicians who pretend to be fighting against racial discrimination may gain power in the black community. Black people may think those politicians are fighting for them when those politicians are simply using race to gain power and support from the black community.
Shelby Steele made this point several times in his documentary. He states several time in the film that the problem is using race as a means to power. In other words, you can’t use unjustified anger at whites to arrive at truth and to achieve progress of your race and racial harmony.
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The next lesson is about black racism toward Asians. To view it
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