Ferguson happened and everybody is to blame.

Ferguson happened and everybody is to blame. 

The Gist

On August 9^th white Ferguson police officer, Darren Wilson, shot and killed unarmed 18 year old, African-American, Michael Brown. A grand jury, consisting of nine whites and three blacks, declined to indict (meaning that at least nine of the twelve people didn't think there was probable cause to try Wilson). Not surprisingly, the city of Ferguson (among others) was rocked by protests and looting (because the businesses were, of course, responsible for his death). Wilson has since resigned from the police force without a pension and the city has been left with millions of dollars worth of damages. As is the case with other major events in the US, we never ask the how and why; we simply KNOW that either Wilson is guilty or he is not. This is what we do know: African Americans in this country are disproportionately poor, incarcerated and living in single parent households. EVERYBODY is to blame for this: white Americans for preventing black Americans from advancing (blacks are disproportionately targeted for punishment in schools, profiled in job interviews, and many sentencing laws hurt minorities more than whites). Black Americans are to blame for using white Americans as the easy scapegoat for the endemic problems that pervade the community (white people didn't cause the high number of domestic violence incidents in the community or cause the large percentage of absentee fathers, for example). Until everyone understands their own part in America’s racial problems, (and yes, that includes every white, brown, black, red, yellow, and green person in this country, whether or not “my ancestors didn’t even have slaves!”), Ferguson’s will continue to occur…and now you know the gist.