COMMON MYTHS ABOUT THE “GOOD OLD DAYS” YOU HAVE TO BE A LITTLE BABY TO BELIEVE

“Make America Great Again”, eh?

Sure, it is tempting to yearn for the good old days. Most of us do it when we feel dissatisfied with the present or anxious about the future, especially as we age and the grass seems wilted and rotten in the “here and now” and crisp and glossy on the other side of the time-space continuum fence.

It is only human nature to revise and embellish the past to fit our wishful thinking. But there exists a treacherous slippery slope, when people actually start believing those rosy dreams of the wondrously charmed past and let those delusions reflect too negatively on their perception of the present. You hear people “reminiscing” about times before they were even born, convinced that those were the best years — especially compared to the shitshow of modern realities.

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Watching TV reruns and hearing our politicians and media peons proclaim the end of morality, this nebulous “back then” comes off as a simpler and a fairer place. “Back in the day”, everyone was doing great-o: families stayed together, small businesses thrived, lawyers were honest, bankers were generous, the police were friendly and young people were just so gosh darn polite.

“Not like today”, we gripe to ourselves, “Not like this bleak, dickful world I must occupy, a victim of cruel timing!! I belong in an era when everyone knew how to work, how to love, how to live! But certainly not in this cesspool of weak, ignorant, apathetic morons!!!”

Well, my friend, you might want to start drinking or toking to loosen yourself up, cause these loathsome nincompoop contemporaries of yours are actually as good as it gets! And so is the theater of the absurd we call modern life. As hard as it is to believe, the world, in all its supreme crappiness, has never been safer or gentler. Not because the now is great but because the before was even more obnoxious. Let’s walk through the five most frequent laments for the “good old days” heard from your garden-variety crabby citizen — and debunk them for the fairy tales they are.

MYTH #5: TODAY’S WORLD IS SO VIOLENT – WOULDN’T IT BE GREAT TO GET BACK TO THE MORE PEACEFUL TIME IN OUR PAST?

Most of us are horrified by the onslaught of narratives, images and sounds of violence piping out of everywhere. It feels like the world is unraveling with gratuitous brutality and is about to reach a critical mass of FUBAR-ness that will result in “Michael-Bay-and-James-Cameron-had-a-baby” level of planetary wipe-out. In times like this, it is instructive to remember that our species’ rap sheet is actually improving.

It is a relief, of sorts, to know that our century does not hold a monopoly on human cruelty: people have been joyfully offing each other for thousands of years with impressive creativity and gusto. Despite emerging science making mass annihilation more possible than ever, we actually do less physical damage to each other today than in past eras.[1] The modern unprecedented advancement in information technology makes conflict and injustice more visible rather than more prevalent.

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 It is increasingly easy to feel like the walls are caving in and the sky is falling but let’s not overlook the silver lining on the noxious crudplatter that is our modern life.  At the very least, we have reached a level of civilization when we can begin to theoretically conceive of a fair, just, safe society. We have laws for complex notions such as “privacy”;  we have words like “ethics” and “inhumane” at our disposal to use in public debates on topics such as “Is it wrong to torture?”

Those public conversations did not exist before! The civil rights of “bad guys” have not always drawn so much interest and empathy from the general public, you know 🙂 And “the unwashed masses” were not always invited to participate in discussions or decisions of any real importance.

The bottom line is: for most of human history, you really had to be a one-percenter to feel secure from being driven off the land, maraudered, enslaved and violated.  Everyone else was in a tight race for survival, vulnerable to exploitation and oppression. The power elite got to live it up until they were “accidentally” poisoned by their own kin or casually dumped to rot away in a dungeon. And, occasionally, the rabble would throw down a revolution and behead everyone rich and fancy. So, no one was safe, really.

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Clearly, humans are still a very aggressive species, but today, some of our violent nature is seeped by “wars” we wage on the virtual battlefields. Instead of hitting each other with sticks and rocks, people express their anger and fear by furiously typing out profanities on anonymous discussion boards, bullying peers or stalking love interests’ social media accounts. Instead of going outside and picking a fight with a rando, intoxicated tough guys have to option to log on to Facebook and rip into some poor bastard who committed the ultimate treachery of not fact-checking their memes before posting. “I don’t care that you raised me, Grandma, you’re a fucking liberal fascist scum for “liking” O’Bummer’s speech! Gawd, how do these douchebags survive getting out of bed?”

So, perhaps we are just as violent in our minds, but not as much in our deeds. Online trolling is the lazy and / or cowardly person’s bar brawl. As luck would have it, there are many, many lazy cowards out there.

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MYTH #4: BACK IN THE DAY, PEOPLE TREATED EACH OTHER WITH RESPECT

No one will insist that today’s world is a glowing bastion of mutual respect and simple dignity. But to suggest that it was any better in the olden days is to erase all the blood and human tragedy of the hellish struggles for civil rights and basic life necessities denied to the majority of the world’s population by the very few in power.

In the United States, unless you are a white male of the upper class, you have no reason to long for the status quo of yore because all those old-fashioned courtesies the “yore” is so fondly remembered for would not have been available to you. But even if you are a wealthy Caucasian male, wishing for those days reflects quite poorly on your character. Are you suggesting you actually want to go back to the days of legal slavery, overt misogyny, religious morality police, child labor, etc.?

Because that’s a pretty damning thing to admit to wishing for. When you say that people aren’t respectful like they used to be, what you really mean is that you’re not being given “due” reverence as the undisputed master of the planet and every living thing in it, solely on the basis of the imaginary formula: low melanin + Y chromosome = *winning!*. The fact that your entitled ass doesn’t get automatic, unearned respect anymore is a heartening sign that the world is getting better, not worse.

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      Maybe don’t be insufferable?

MYTH #3: KIDS TODAY ARE UNEDUCATED, MANNERLESS, ANTI-SOCIAL IMBECILES

This should be common knowledge, but let’s repeat it anyway, for the older crowd, god bless them: there has never been a single cohort of aging adults that did not consider the young people of their day to be the sure sign of the impending apocalypse! Those arrogant, crusty little blah blah blah blah *trail off* “This was, surely, not at all the case when I was a child – we were all thoughtful, well-behaved youngsters who worshiped and obeyed our parents.”

Of course you were, Dearie. You also always did the right thing and said all your prayers, so it’s shocking that God would punish you with these (check the rant that applies to your generation):

___ arrogant, defiant, oversexed, drugged up, barely literate little shits

___ pathetic, anti-social, vanilla pansy-ass, attention-deficient, barely literate little shits

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The irony of ragging on their own spawn for being doomed, incompetent idiots seems to be wasted on parents who, after all, popped out and raised those funky creatures. And who, pray tell, came up with all that technology that you claim is sapping their brains and social skills? Stop blaming the inventions of the brilliant and/or evil minds of your own contemporaries on your unsuspecting offspring, people!

And while we are at it, let’s back off on holding them responsible for all the ills of the universe. Remember, you once inherited this turd of a world from your own parents! So, it seems hypocritical and mean to gloat to the next generation, like: “Ewww, you’re holding a turd! Way to catch a turd, dumbass!” Like you don’t know where they got the turd. From you. They got the turd from you.

To be perfectly clear, the young people of today are, indeed, arrogant, entitled little shits — but so were you and your parents and their parents and so on and so forth, to the dawn of human existence, so let’s zip it already.

MYTH #2: IN THE PAST, PEOPLE KNEW HOW TO LOVE EACH OTHER MORE

In today’s USA, approximately half of marriages end in divorce. This is a statistic many people find depressing and threateningly reflective of their own dwindling chances at romantic bliss. It’s true, divorce numbers have never been higher but let’s rid ourselves of the false premise that continued marriage equals a wholesome, “good-for-you” marriage.

Comfort, security, routine — marriage is designed to provide those things. At the same time, it is perfectly possible to be married and quite miserable until your dying day — and it becomes highly probable if you only get one chance to get it right. An entrenched sense of settlement, combined with social fears, unwillingness to change oneself and the hesitation to take a risk and “end up alone”: those are the guiding reasons why many people remain in marriages, not love, devotion or happiness.

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Even if people had more technically “durable” marriages in the past than today, it sure as hell was not because they knew the secret to keeping passionate love alive for all eternity any more than us schmucks of today. It was for two decidedly un-warm-and-fuzzy reasons:

1) people needed to stay bonded for life out of socio-economic necessities and / or

2) marriage was compulsory and divorce was either completely illegal or socially stigmatized to the point where it was not a real option.

So, kiddies, instead of bemoaning the death of Love as we know it, be grateful for the unlimited opportunity to find a new lease on life and fulfillment. High divorce rates are actually a sign that the search for true love is quite alive: people are willing to leave their current partner and upset their established routines, identities and social lives — just to give themselves a chance at finding “the right one”, the fools.

Pretty romantic, no?

MYTH #1: WHEN *I* WAS YOUNG, THE WORLD WAS A BETTER PLACE

Who, among us, isn’t guilty of strolling down the ole’ memory lane and yearning for the magic of childhood? This tendency is so strong in humans that we start mourning the passing of our youth, while still in it.

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Go ahead, indulge in nostalgia — just don’t confuse the deeply personal experience of being a child with the historical time period that coincided with it.

Listening to some folks talk, they seem to genuinely believe that “back then”, life was objectively more exciting and full of opportunities, and that food tasted better and the air smelled fresher. Suuuure — and people and objects were much larger and distances were farther apart too  😆

In fact, the world had been aflame all along. It is just that your young brain was, first, too underdeveloped, sheltered and naive and, later, too drunk, high, horny and generally overstimulated to pick up on all the misery and atrocity surrounding you. If obliviousness shielded us from reality, all children and drunks would be immortal.

The truth is, the world of our youth was full of sudden possibilities because WE were full of untapped potential and it still remained to be seen what we would do with all those natural gifts. Then, somehow, you find yourself a grownup — with a hefty baggage of rejections, betrayals and losses and the lingering aftertaste of humble pie on your breath. Whether or not you are doing “well” for yourself, by a certain age you realize that adulthood is not the smooth ride of wish fulfillment you once imagined.

So, of course, it’s nice to long for the “good old days” of boundless energy, trust, the delight of having so much to discover in the world. Underneath it all, we all long to be a clean slate, free from responsibility and unburdened by disappointment — in essence, to be an innocent baby again. Our mouths are grumbling “back in my day” but our brains are sputtering “goo-goo, gaa-gaa”.

Buck up disgruntled Gen-X-ers and jaded Millennials! There’s a “teaching moment” and  a self-bettering opportunity in all this infantile snot-wallowing. Next time you get the urge to miss them “good old days”, ask yourself: how do I feel about my life today? What is so unsatisfactory / disillusioning about my present that I’m willing to invent a fake past to distract myself from it?

The good news is that there is plenty of wonder and magic and “good” left in the world for all of us to tap — it just has to be accessed from the advanced spiritual plane of gratitude and empathy, afforded by experience accumulated through life. The less-good news is that, while aging bears much fruit in the way of anxiety and cynicism, it in no way guarantees maturity or wisdom, so… Good luck with that, let me know how it works out for you — and I’ll do the same…

 

[1] For a detailed history and analysis, check out Steven Pinker’s “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.” (Public Library)

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE UNREST IN FERGUSON, PART 3: PRIORITIZING PROPERTY OVER HUMAN LIFE

In this several-part series of posts, I address a few of recurring misconceptions that serve as the foundation for much of the mouth-foaming going on out there. These are the false assumptions people take for granted as “real” and “true” when they insist that the problem with Ferguson is not with the misappropriation of law enforcement but with the residents of Ferguson themselves. This is a response to popular “reasonings” used by Caucasian police apologists that I have come across browsing Facebook and online news articles’ comments sections. I focus on white people because I am “white” and it is not up to me to lecture people of color about racism. Also, white people in general, seem to have a weaker grasp on the notions of racism or socio-economic privilege than people who are not considered white, so they need this conversation more than others.

FALSE ASSUMPTION: Property damage caused by arson and looting is the worst thing happening in Ferguson, MO.

REALITY CHECK: When did the concern for damaged property trump the care for the wellness of fellow human beings? Have capitalist aims and consumerist desires eclipsed our ability to care about anything other than material stuff???

Again and again, I come across angry rants about private property being destroyed in the riots, as if this, somehow, justifies inhumane measures against the protesters. Property destruction is wrong and disturbing, to be sure and NOBODY IS ARGUING WITH THAT! But the outrage about loss and defacement of property seems disproportionately high comparing to how little the same individuals are regretting the loss of Michael Brown’s young life that has taken place in Ferguson. As I recall, in the Ten Commandments, “thou shalt not kill” comes before “thou shalt not steal”.

Nonetheless, “If someone came looting at me, God help them” seems to be a popular sentiment. Fair enough! And if someone shot your unarmed child and let his corpse lie in the street for four-and-a-half hours and did not have to go to trial that would at least give your child’s death some kind of due process – what would you do then?

Personally, I am very impressed with how few people in Ferguson let their anger guide their public behavior – they deserve a lot of credit and respect for being so orderly and in control of their tempers as they, once again, find themselves dodging tear gas and cruel public judgment for peacefully speaking up. I am always awe-struck and humbled seeing black people maintain patience, calm and poise, in the face of belligerent whites urging them to “get over it” and accept that we are all living in a purely equal, meritocratic, post-racial society.

Have you ever been in horrific pain, while everyone around you is telling you that it is all in your head and you should just get over it and stop making something out of nothing? If you have, you know what this does to the human spirit. If you haven’t – lucky you – but try not to take it for granted as if it is the only reality that exists.

I cannot express the bitterness, fury and incredulity I feel about this – and other displays of obliviousness and indifference towards social abuses of this nature. It is hard to fathom how otherwise seemingly decent people can so flippantly dismiss and devalue the cries of sorrow and frustration of tens of thousands of their own brethren but raise hell over theft and arson committed by a handful of loose cannons and saboteurs. Injustice and indignity scar us socially and psychologically – how can we allow this to keep happening in plain sight to whole populations and not only turn a blind eye but agitatedly defend it with the air of moral indignation and socio-economic superiority? Don’t you have children of your own? But you must think that you raised them better than getting shot by the police, right? Therefore, none of this applies to you whatsoever?

The cultural worship of the American Dream is, in very large part, to blame for this element of self-delusion. It is hammered into everyone’s brains from an early age that one is the end-all master of one’s fate and there is nothing else to it. For many in positions of relative social privilege, the illusion of perfectly independent self-sufficiency does not dissipate through life, but sticks and becomes more reinforced by examples of their own success. “Success” in this country traditionally translates into accumulation of material goods. Hence, having our earthly possessions attacked means more to us than just property damage — it is a symbolic assault on our core values, on our sense of self-identity and esteem and it feels so personal and sacrilegious, it can overshadow all other concerns and considerations.

It may be hard, but we must work on recovering our empathy for others from under the thick layers of self-interest and unhealthy preoccupation with “stuff” as a marker of our self- and social worth. The myth of all-reaching meritocracy makes it easy to think that the misfortunes that befall others could never happen to ourselves because we have done nothing to deserve them. It makes it challenging to comprehend that many others have done nothing to deserve it either, yet, terrible social injustices happen to them all the same. To grasp this would lead to having to admit that we are not in complete control of our lives and that is an unsettling and jarring revelation for an individualistic nation. It would also mean that we have to give a hoot about each other a little more…

If you are white and you are, somehow, not deeply upset about the dehumanization of your black compatriots, you have got to cut through the noise of loudmouth media talking heads, friends and family and get in touch with your own, unique humanity. Feel kinship – not hate – for all the hard-working, law-abiding, morally concerned individuals – just like yourself – that are being routinely ignorantly mistaken for criminals and treated as such by the police force that has no understanding or empathy for the population it has been hired to serve and protect.

Does it look like the police of Ferguson, Missouri are serving or protecting anybody other than themselves? There is a huge difference in attitude and, hence, outcome between a police force that walks around flexing its muscles and lording its authority over others – as opposed to public servants who are honestly and passionately committed to doing what they must to shield the populace from harm.

A fair, caring law enforcement agency would be beloved and admired by the people it serves but, unfortunately, it is too often the above-the-law bullies with badges that roam and rule our city streets. We must do away with the insular fraternal culture of the police – they owe loyalty to the public, not each other. Again, it goes without saying that not all cops are abusive or corrupt but the system of fraternity-above-fairness encourages – nay, forces – officers of the law to indiscriminately protect “their own”, regardless of the quality and integrity of each other’s character and actions.

You know what people want and need even more than justice for the past? Dignity for the present and hope for the future! It is that simple but those values are truly in the shortest supply. The wounds of the past history of ugliness and injustice will only begin to heal after the echoes of those eras are no longer felt in the Today. So, when people are raging like this and in such numbers, it is not because they have nothing better to do. It is because they are still kicked in the teeth by powers that be while we, the majority, stand by and watch our brothers and sisters being demeaned and vilified – and refuse to acknowledge that it is happening and it is wrong and it must stop.

For more MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT FERGUSON posts, see:

PART 1: CONFUSING PROTESTERS WITH RIOTERS

PART 2: CLAIMING THE POLICE ARE “COLORBLIND”

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE UNREST IN FERGUSON, PART 2: CLAIMING THE POLICE ARE “COLORBLIND”

In this several-part series of posts, I address a few of recurring misconceptions that serve as the foundation for much of the mouth-foaming going on out there. These are the false assumptions people take for granted as “real” and “true” when they insist that the problem with Ferguson is not with the misappropriation of law enforcement but with the residents of Ferguson themselves. This is a response to popular “reasonings” used by Caucasian police apologists that I have come across browsing Facebook and online news articles’ comments sections. I focus on white people because I am “white” and it is not up to me to lecture people of color about racism. Also, white people in general, seem to have a weaker grasp on the notions of racism or socio-economic privilege than people who are not considered white, so they need this conversation more than others.

FALSE ASSUMPTION: Justice is colorblind but the police have no choice but to go after blacks, many of whom are criminals.

REALITY CHECK: What nobody wants to admit is that the police are afraid of black people, black men in particular. Very, very afraid.

Many people siding with the Ferguson police are saying that it is a tough job and that the officer who shot Michael Brown had a hard decision on his hands and will have to live with this burden for the rest of his life. This is a very reasonable argument and does apply to countless officers who put their lives on the line and have to live with all the psychological trauma of the consequences of having to make these impossibly difficult judgment calls on the spot. Those officers deserve our support and appreciation because they go through private hell most of us know nothing about.

I cannot say I believe this is the case here because, instead of treating it as a tragedy, the police are arrogantly defending their right-ness with zero regard to the personal and social fall-out. Even if Officer Wilson had every reason to fear for his life and shot Michael Brown in absolute self-defense (though that does not at all look to be the case here), he could still be really, really sorry about it, he could be human about it and appeal to the community by sharing their grief, by acknowledging how unfortunate and heartbreaking the event had been – even if he had no other recourse but to use lethal measures.

But that is the thing: neither Officer Wilson, nor any of his colleagues seem remotely broken up over taking the life of the boy. They don’t seem to perceive him as a human child whose life ended too early. They appear to think of him as street vermin that had to be put down. This could have been an opportunity for all of us to open a dialog about how to better handle “suspicious” individuals, especially teens, and, more importantly, take an honest hard look at what constitutes “suspiciousness” in the first place. The fact that race is a factor (a very complex one) must be acknowledged in no uncertain terms, before actual progress can be made. Instead, the Ferguson Police Department is sticking to their guns, so to speak. They show no remorse or intention to build bridges with the people of Ferguson, only hyper-defensive hostility, backed up by demonstrated willingness to use more violence and do more damage to the already suffering community.

Officer Wilson may sincerely believe he acted out of duty by killing Michael Brown because he genuinely felt THAT MUCH threatened by him. And if you don’t think that race was a defining element in this, well, you are, unfortunately, a part of the problem, no matter how “good” a person you may be otherwise. The jarringly sad truth is: the American police are TERRIFIED of black men in a way they are not threatened by any other social demographic.

Unarmed white people do not get weapons discharged into them nowhere nearly as frequently (and without consequences) because “white people” as a category are not deemed an unequivocally intimidating, unpredictable bunch. Likewise, white people congregating in large groups, no matter how drunken, obnoxious and violent, are not perceived as inevitable trouble the way a gathering of black people, especially black male youths, is interpreted.

When we look at the psychology behind what happens in white police vs. black men stand-offs, a hellish catch-22 emerges. By and large, the American police are afraid of black men and those who are the weaker-willed of the crop, compensate for their cowardice with pronounced abuse of power.

Now, personally, I have never seen anyone take racist disrespect and belligerence more stoically and gracefully than black Americans. I’ve seen white people swarm a person of color like a pack of rabid possums, foaming at the mouth, hissing something hateful, finger-in-face — and this person just stands there with this zen calm, speaking in a very restrained, measured way — or completely keeping silent, as if engaged in meditation or internal dialogue, impervious to indignity. Dissociation is the defense mechanism nature “gifts” to those who have been violated again and again…

But yes, okay, not all young people have yet mastered hiding their contempt towards arrogant and pushy police officers (patience and proper etiquette with cops is something expected a lot more of black teens than their white counterparts who get away with taunting the police all the time…) Having grown up under the suspicious and hostile gaze of the law enforcement, feeling increasingly  fed up with being singled out, some young black men will act provocatively towards the police. Or just not be terribly “cooperative”, which is enough to infuriate the bullies among their interrogators. The negativity escalates, resulting in every kind of misinterpretation of motive, which can lead to rash, reactive behaviors, with lethal consequences for the non-uniformed party. (If you ask me, the messed-up cultural conditioning known as “toxic masculinity” is another major culprit here, but that’s a can of worms best left to be opened in a separate post.)

Enough with justifying police brutality already: the endless loop of fear and damning stereotyping must end – and the ball is in the court of the police!! They must, to begin with, acknowledge their preconceived biases — and those deeply ingrained attitudes as a problem to solve, not a “whoops” to deny. The responsibility with mending public trust and initiating the healing process rests with the police.

Unfortunately, this would require a massive paradigm shift in how law enforcement is done in this country. We would have to overhaul the entire police training system for an entirely new set of priorities, attitudes and boundaries. It is time to put the Wild West behind us already and cultivate a whole new generation of public servants sincerely invested into the well-being of their people, and rid the system of state-sanctioned goons with guns harassing the poorest and most powerless members of society.

 

For more MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT FERGUSON posts, see:

PART 1: CONFUSING PROTESTERS WITH RIOTERS

PART 3: THE VALUE OF PROPERTY VS. HUMAN LIFE

 

MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT THE UNREST IN FERGUSON, PART 1: CONFUSING PROTESTERS WITH RIOTERS

In the wake of the announcement that Officer Darren Wilson will not stand trial for the killing of Michael Brown, the city of Ferguson, Missouri, once again, became the hotbed of clashes between the police and civilians. Social media did not fail to explode with forceful opinions, rants and accusations in every which direction. It is as if – as a new popular meme mockingly suggests – “millions of FB users suddenly got their law degrees”. And, whether they arrived at their conclusions through heavy contemplation or by mindlessly repeating soundbites overheard from TV or the Internet or friends or family, everybody takes their own opinions very, very seriously.

In this several-part series of posts, I would like to address a few of recurring misconceptions that serve as the foundation for much of the mouth-foaming going on out there. These are the false assumptions people take for granted as “real” and “true” when they insist that the problem with Ferguson is not with the misappropriation of law enforcement but with the residents of Ferguson themselves. This is a response to popular “reasonings” used by Caucasian police apologists that I have come across browsing Facebook and online news articles’ comments sections. I focus on white people because I am “white” and it is not up to me to lecture people of color about racism. Also, white people in general, seem to have a weaker grasp on the notions of racism or socio-economic privilege than people who are not considered white, so they need this conversation more than others.

FALSE ASSUMPTION: “Those people” are wrong to resort to disorderly conduct and violence to make their point.

REALITY CHECK: Peaceful protesters and rioting looters are not the same crowd!!! (Also, referring to the Ferguson community and other black Americans as “these people” is offensive.)

Throughout the Ferguson social unrest, there are two distinct groups of people who have taken to the streets for entirely different reasons:

The peaceful protesters are expressing their genuine disappointment, sadness and – yes – anger – about systematic police brutality and neglect towards African Americans – but doing so in an organized, civil and constructive manner: by calmly exercising their right to speak freely.

In the country where I was born, people were hauled away in the middle of the night in black vans for not only voicing their dissent but for even “thinking” about it – and still, some refused to stay silent in the face of oppression. One should never take free speech for granted and I am proud of people of Ferguson for swallowing the very natural impulse to lash out in anger or to shut down and withdraw in grief and hopelessness and futility – but, instead, coming out, voicing their hurt and marching together! Considering how much backlash they are facing, that takes wisdom and courage and we should all stand with them for this!

Violent rioters, on the other hand, are driven by a wholly different set of motivations: the promise to possibly make a profit from busting up stores or an opportunity to channel emotional rage into testosterone-fueled, peer-encouraged violence. Personally, I can understand that some of these guys don’t feel too bad about messing up people’s property: they do not get much love or respect from their surrounding environment and, hence, do not have much respect or love for other people or their stuff. Humans are notoriously prone to either live up to the high standards or degenerate to the low expectations the community and society at large sets for them and many kids branded as “thugs” early in life will end up embodying this identity, as a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. This is not a justification but an explanation of origins of lash-outs, such as these.

Also, like it or not, violence can be a form of self-expression and I bet, if you went from person to person, you would find a mix of far-gone, unscrupulous criminals but also decent young men who are misdirecting their legitimate frustration into destructive behavior because they have few means to be heard otherwise.

Nonetheless, rioting and looting and brawling are not the answer and, here is the thing: NOBODY IS ACTUALLY DEFENDING THE RIOTERS AND THE LOOTERS! People may be offering explanations as to what compels rioters, trying to set the context for why people are angry. But has anyone said: “Yes, power to those looters! They should be left alone to do their looting”? No, no one has said this because nobody is on the side of lawlessness.

The thing that the whites who gripe about the street unrest in Ferguson fail to understand is that the normal, regular people of the Ferguson community hate the bad eggs in their midst just as much as anyone else. They don’t enjoy being terrorized and subjected to property crimes and physical violence any more than you. They came to the protest to express grief and frustration and have a peaceful show of solidarity – they cannot be held responsible for the criminals showing up too!

So, let us quit grouping together a small number of rogues with a huge collective of people who came out for an admirable purpose – to seek solace in togetherness and to start a national dialogue. They would happily be rid of the troublemakers too, if they could. If only there was a social organization dedicated to serving and protecting peaceful demonstrators… Oh, right, right – they are over there – firing tear gas into the crowd of unarmed citizens.

For more MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT FERGUSON posts, see:

PART 2: CLAIMING THE POLICE ARE “COLORBLIND”

PART 3: THE VALUE OF PROPERTY VS. HUMAN LIFE