Shades of Gray in Ferguson

“Sir!” I turned and saw a lady looking at me.  I walked over to where she stood on the sidewalk.  “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” she asked.

“Of course not” I replied.

She looked at me and asked me very sincerely, “Why are you here?”

It was certainly a legitimate question.  I am sure I stood out a bit.  The people lining the streets of Ferguson, Missouri on Sunday night were predominantly African American and I am clearly a middle aged white man from the suburbs.

I pointed to my sign which simply read: Peace.  Liberty.  Responsibility.  She nodded but we both knew that was not really what she was asking me.  “You know” I said,” I think I just got tired of sitting on the couch and watching the chaos on my television”.   I went back to my sign and explained that I was sick of the violence and fighting.  I want peace.  I am concerned about violations of individual rights that I have been witnessing.  I want to defend liberty – freedom of speech and of press and of peaceful assembly.  And I want to see people act responsibly.  It makes me sick to see looting and violence bring worldwide negative attention to St. Louis.

We spoke for a while about what was going on and why.  She introduced me to her family which was there on the sidewalk with her.  We took some pictures together.  They felt very strongly that Michael Brown’s death was a tragedy, and they wanted to see justice.  It was a tragedy, and I, too, want justice.  But I know justice will come from an investigation and facts and then a Grand Jury and perhaps ultimately a trial which will take a long time.  They were interested in an immediate charge of murder.

I had a number of good conversations on Sunday.  I spoke for some time with a very nice lady wearing an Obama t-shirt.  She had just come from a church service, the one where Capt. Johnson spoke to the people from his heart, which was very well received.  She and I had a number of things we would not see eye-to-eye on, the first being the man on the t-shirt.  She is a lifelong Democrat, but does not care for Rep. Lacy Clay or County Prosecutor Bob McCulloch, both Democrats.

We did share a passion for seeing people get involved in their community and government, even if we come from different ends of the spectrum.  When discussing McCulloch she lamented the fact that only about 13% of the residents of Ferguson voted in the recent primary election.  She votes, and she said her parents were very active Democrats and taught her to be involved from an early age.

We shared a concern about the violence and looting.  She was not happy that a small minority of people were causing so much trouble and making the community look bad.  She acknowledged that some of the troublemakers were local but correctly noted that outsiders were provoking a great deal of the violence. 

Like everyone there she wanted justice for Mike Brown.  But she admitted that her neighbor did not necessarily share that view.  She was fairly shocked to hear her neighbor say that she might have shot Mike Brown too under the circumstances.  I listened.  I do not know what happened that afternoon and I see no sense in rushing to judgment before all of the facts are presented.

She and I both value individual liberty.  We feel the need to protect freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble and freedom of the press.  We don’t like the militarization of the local police forces and we agreed that the extreme crackdown just a couple of nights prior probably made things worse.

She and I agreed that the situation had been mishandled by government officials.  She felt the release of the robbery video was uncalled for and wondered why they did not release the name of the officer sooner.  I told her I was in favor of releasing all of the information as soon as possible, including the robbery information and officer’s name and let the facts speak for themselves.

And then we spoke for a while about the real issues.  She told me something that we all know but many are dancing around.  This tension has been brewing for a VERY long time.  The Mike Brown incident merely ignited the underlying tension and that is the real reason for the anger and frustration we see acted out on a nightly basis.  She says young black males, including her sons, are being unfairly targeted by the local police. 

According to her the folks in Ferguson and the rest of North County feel they are being oppressed.  They resent having a mostly white police force.  They have been protesting police brutality for some time and feel the county prosecutor has turned a deaf ear to their complaints.  I mentioned that there had been a real effort to hire more black officers and that it was apparently not an easy thing to do.  Not enough young black men want the job, and the requirements that you have no criminal record and complete the academy have narrowed the number of people eligible.  She said she had family members who had tried and been rejected.

A friend of hers came up, an older African American gentleman who was battling cancer.  I could see the genuine concern in her eyes and could feel the friendship and love there.  I thanked her for the conversation and she thanked me for being there.  “Liberty” she said, “does not know color.  This is not a black and white thing”.  And she is right.

As I moved on I had several more conversations that went much the same way.  I saw families there, young kids out with their parents, learning to be active in their community.  There were babies in strollers and on their parent’s shoulders.  People were there from churches.  Parents were taking pictures of their children holding signs.  They felt they were part of history.  Maybe so.

As I moved on I saw another side of the crowd that was there.  Young men were huddled in small groups, smoking pot and drinking and playing rap music.  Pants were down, underwear on display.  A few cars came by, radio blaring and windows and doors open and shouting and chanting.  A large van was parked on the side of the street with young black men on top, very loud and rowdy and agitated.  They were jumping up and down and whipping up the crowd to frenzy.  A car stopped in the street and smoked its tires, very loud.

Groups marched and paraded up and down the street chanting “No Justice, No Peace”, and “Hands up! Don’t Shoot!”.  This was an interesting mix of adults and children and young adults.  Some were dressed from church, some were dressed in gang attire, and some were, for lack of a better term, skanky.  It was a carnival, a circus of sorts.

I kept walking and as I did I met groups of police officers, usually 10 or 12 in a row, on the side of the street watching but not interfering.  I shook each one of their hands and simply said “thank you”.  They have a very tough job and for the most part are doing it well.  I may criticize leadership, and I know some of these guys have made mistakes, but I am truly thankful they are there and I respect their service to the community.

There were state police and county police and Ferguson police and I even shook Capt. Johnson’s hand.  He looked very tired.  People wanted to take pictures with him and he was obliging.  It can’t be easy, being the public face of authority in the midst of chaos.  As I shook hands with each one there was a mix of reactions.  In some faces I saw gratitude that someone thanked them and realized what they were going through.  On some I saw surprise not just at the presence of a middle aged white guy in this environment but that I would stop to thank them.

Many of the cops were friendly.  One mentioned he had run the same half marathon featured on my shirt.  A lot of them were trying to interact with the crowd and diffuse the tension.  And some, a few, looked at me with the pure distrust and (dare I say it) malice that one sometimes encounters in the person who pulls you over for a traffic violation.  But that was a very small minority.  Most of them seemed like great folks, albeit in a tough position.

I made my way back to the QT and as it was getting dark I decided to head back to the car.  As I walked back I encountered another middle aged white man who asked me what my sign meant.  I explained and he nodded his understanding.  He is a resident of Ferguson, and he said he had been asking everyone what their sign meant and many could not explain to him what they were trying to say.  We talked a bit and I told him to be safe.  He winked and told me not to worry.  “I am a lifelong NRA member and I know how to defend my home”, he said.

Ferguson is not the only major news story this week.  Gaza is another example of a few terrorists stirring up trouble with the Israelis facing a decision much like the police is Missouri: how do you stop the violent actions of a few without violating the rights of the other peaceful citizens?  Why are the peaceful citizens of Gaza seemingly complicit with the violent terrorism of Hamas?  The answer is at least part fear and part indoctrination.

In Iraq the most violent of Muslim groups are beheading children and raping women and attempting genocide of entire groups of people.  The debate in the US is over how involved we should be in stopping them.  We have begun using air strikes to help the Kurds and Iraqis defend themselves but it is not enough for some people and others worry that we will have mission creep and get involved again in a violent situation that is none of our business.  Americans are both weary of war and horrified by the atrocities we are witnessing.

From Gaza to ISIS to Ferguson to Ukraine and elsewhere it seems we see the same dilemmas.  On the one hand, there are evil thugs in the world that will never respond to anything but overwhelming force.  They must be confronted and either killed or arrested or nullified.  They are a minority but they control the “crowd” by fear and intimidation and violence.  They will resist the use of force but we are fortunate in this country to have enough force to overcome them if we choose.

And then there are “the people”.  These are men, women, and children that want nothing more than to be free and to pursue their vision of happiness whether in St. Louis or Iraq or Palestine.  Sometimes they will condemn the violent minority and sometimes they embrace them.  “Snitches get stitches” all around the world. 

And of course, there are the authorities.  Whether the police or Netanyahu they are invariably damned if they do and damned if they don’t.  If they do not confront the violent thugs then chaos ensues.  If they do they are accused of being heavy handed and abusing the rights of the people.  The perfect balance is impossible to find.  And the tension and frustration of trying to walk that tightrope wears on a person.  It is hard not to become mistrustful and cynical yourself.

As much as I would like for everything to be black and white I know it is not.  These are shades of gray.  The issues are nuanced and not simple.  I do not know Officer Wilson and I did not know Michael Brown and I don’t know what happened but I can tell you nobody involved here is perfect. 

There has been a rush to judgment on both sides.  Some were certain early on that the officer was guilty and a murder charge was in order.  Others were quite certain that the actions of Officer Wilson were fully justified.  Both sides began looking to point out everything that supported their version and to suppress anything that didn’t fit their narrative. 

Why was I there?  Because I knew I needed to listen.  I knew there was truth to both sides.  I was there to validate the concerns of the people of Ferguson and to thank the police for walking a tightrope.  I was there because St. Louis is my home.  I was there because I found I was unable to speak to those folks from my couch. 

I was there in part to communicate as well.  The three words on my sign had meaning.  The thugs did not give a damn, but perhaps the children, who were excited to hold a sign and be part of history would take home something a little different.  They may have their perceptions altered ever so slightly by seeing an old white man smiling at them.  Perhaps a police officer’s perception was altered ever so slightly by seeing me down there supporting liberty and responsibility.

The problems we face will not be solved by bullets or leaders or by violent thugs and terrorists.  They will be solved by shifting the paradigm one person at a time.  They will be solved by small actions by many people who are fed up with swallowing the nonsense that we are all being fed on a daily basis. 

I wish it were all simple and easy and quick, but it is not.  I wish there were only good guys and bad guys and they wore the right hats so we could tell them apart.  But that is not the case.  Skin color does not matter, except when people think it does.  Liberty, said the lady, knows no color.