NobodyReally
Superstar
This is a great read for those who have time. For those who don't, just read the excepts below.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/op...brown-demon-ferguson-2014112672358760344.html
We've seen this movie before
On Monday, a grand jury failed to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black boy. This was confirmed at 1 pm, but the information was not released until 9 pm. Why did the authorities wait until the evening to announce the decision? Because they knew that crowd control is more difficult at night, and that night shots of fires and police/protester standoffs would be more dramatic than daytime ones? Were the lives of thousands - civilians and police alike - put at risk, all in the name of PR, because they needed a diversion?
Outrage across US over Ferguson ruling
In the end, they got what they wanted. A building caught fire, which gave news stations an excuse to run "Ferguson in Flames" headlines, to ignore thousands of peacefully protesting citizens to focus on looters, to report about police cars burning but ignore police scanner reports that a main suspect was a white male.
Watching things play out in Ferguson has been like watching a bad movie after a friend spoils the plot for you. That is why in all of the articles that have come out after the verdict, there is none of the original urgency that we saw during the first weeks after the shooting.
After all, we've all seen this one before, haven't we? White cop shoots black thug, black thugs riot, Al Sharpton says something, people forget, credits roll.
So, it's no wonder non-Americans tend to think that real life in the US is just like it is in violent Hollywood movies - because it often is. But this doesn't mean that other countries have picked up our bad habit of frantically demonising blacks in the news. Watching foreign news treatment of Michael Brown is particularly illuminating. In Japan, newscasters call him "Brown-san", using the honorific suffix "-san" out of respect. In Mexican coverage, he's referred to as a "joven", in Brazil, a "jovem", in Taiwan, a "xiaonian" - all words for a "young man". In other words, he is treated as a person.
But in the US, we are warned that Michael Brown "was no angel". We are told that he made rap songs. We are reminded that he was quite tall (just as tall as his killer), and a bit overweight (this part makes him scary). Fox News has worked to cast doubt on whether he was headed to college or not. Any facade of humanity that Brown might have had has been stripped away, all the better to show us the terrifying monster within.
Killing our demons
In his testimony, Officer Darren Wilson, the man who shot Michael Brown, said of the victim that "it look[ed] like a demon". That is, not only was Brown a "demon", but an "it".
Granted, Wilson may have misspoken. He probably meant "he" instead of "it". But, this is a man who has sworn to protect the lives of his fellow citizens. He has also had weeks to receive the finest media training available. This was, to put it neutrally, a very delicate case. If it did not occur to him or his handlers that referring to a dead boy as "it", "a demon", or "the threat" in public was a bad idea, does that not suggest that perhaps something might be wrong with the way Ferguson police interact with the citizenry?
But none of this matters, because Michael Brown was not a person. He was a demon, and apparently, a comic book character.
Fault Lines - Ferguson: City under siege
At another point in the testimony, Wilson said that Brown "looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I'm shooting at him".
Nobody seems to know what "bulking up" even means. I've only heard it in terms of sports - athletes eat more and workout during the off-season so as to "bulk up" and be more muscular and competitive come game time.
But "bulking up" isn't something that one instantaneously does after being shot once, nor in order to prepare to run through a hail of bullets. Really, this doesn't sound like a testimony, it sounds like the plot line of The Incredible Hulk.
To be honest, Wilson's story doesn't make any sense to me, but I'll never know the truth now, because the US was denied a trial. So, I'm afraid I have to agree with all of the racists. Perhaps whatever Wilson saw that day wasn't human. There might have been a human out there in the street, but Wilson didn't see him. He saw a demon, and it's hard to blame him, because that's all we seem to see.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/op...brown-demon-ferguson-2014112672358760344.html
We've seen this movie before
On Monday, a grand jury failed to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black boy. This was confirmed at 1 pm, but the information was not released until 9 pm. Why did the authorities wait until the evening to announce the decision? Because they knew that crowd control is more difficult at night, and that night shots of fires and police/protester standoffs would be more dramatic than daytime ones? Were the lives of thousands - civilians and police alike - put at risk, all in the name of PR, because they needed a diversion?
Outrage across US over Ferguson ruling
In the end, they got what they wanted. A building caught fire, which gave news stations an excuse to run "Ferguson in Flames" headlines, to ignore thousands of peacefully protesting citizens to focus on looters, to report about police cars burning but ignore police scanner reports that a main suspect was a white male.
Watching things play out in Ferguson has been like watching a bad movie after a friend spoils the plot for you. That is why in all of the articles that have come out after the verdict, there is none of the original urgency that we saw during the first weeks after the shooting.
After all, we've all seen this one before, haven't we? White cop shoots black thug, black thugs riot, Al Sharpton says something, people forget, credits roll.
So, it's no wonder non-Americans tend to think that real life in the US is just like it is in violent Hollywood movies - because it often is. But this doesn't mean that other countries have picked up our bad habit of frantically demonising blacks in the news. Watching foreign news treatment of Michael Brown is particularly illuminating. In Japan, newscasters call him "Brown-san", using the honorific suffix "-san" out of respect. In Mexican coverage, he's referred to as a "joven", in Brazil, a "jovem", in Taiwan, a "xiaonian" - all words for a "young man". In other words, he is treated as a person.
But in the US, we are warned that Michael Brown "was no angel". We are told that he made rap songs. We are reminded that he was quite tall (just as tall as his killer), and a bit overweight (this part makes him scary). Fox News has worked to cast doubt on whether he was headed to college or not. Any facade of humanity that Brown might have had has been stripped away, all the better to show us the terrifying monster within.
Killing our demons
In his testimony, Officer Darren Wilson, the man who shot Michael Brown, said of the victim that "it look[ed] like a demon". That is, not only was Brown a "demon", but an "it".
Granted, Wilson may have misspoken. He probably meant "he" instead of "it". But, this is a man who has sworn to protect the lives of his fellow citizens. He has also had weeks to receive the finest media training available. This was, to put it neutrally, a very delicate case. If it did not occur to him or his handlers that referring to a dead boy as "it", "a demon", or "the threat" in public was a bad idea, does that not suggest that perhaps something might be wrong with the way Ferguson police interact with the citizenry?
But none of this matters, because Michael Brown was not a person. He was a demon, and apparently, a comic book character.
Fault Lines - Ferguson: City under siege
At another point in the testimony, Wilson said that Brown "looked like he was almost bulking up to run through the shots, like it was making him mad that I'm shooting at him".
Nobody seems to know what "bulking up" even means. I've only heard it in terms of sports - athletes eat more and workout during the off-season so as to "bulk up" and be more muscular and competitive come game time.
But "bulking up" isn't something that one instantaneously does after being shot once, nor in order to prepare to run through a hail of bullets. Really, this doesn't sound like a testimony, it sounds like the plot line of The Incredible Hulk.
To be honest, Wilson's story doesn't make any sense to me, but I'll never know the truth now, because the US was denied a trial. So, I'm afraid I have to agree with all of the racists. Perhaps whatever Wilson saw that day wasn't human. There might have been a human out there in the street, but Wilson didn't see him. He saw a demon, and it's hard to blame him, because that's all we seem to see.
Mods, can you move this to TLR?