I think one side has a much larger issue that they are tired of being asked to keep quiet about.
Who has been asking them to keep quiet? Are you talking about the black community or the group that was supporting the right to a fair trial and not to be convicted in the press and in the streets?
Sometimes outrage makes sense.
Outrage always makes sense when an outrageous event takes place. The problem I have though, is that we don't know what led to the death of this young man. No matter what caused it, it is a very sad and terrible event. Anytime any of our young people are taken from us, it is a very sad event. For us to be outraged over that, is just fine and very understandable. For us to direct that outrage, we must first see what caused it to occur. Was it a police officer exceeding his authority? Did the young man attack the officer which led to his death? Both are possible at this point to be what occurred. If it is the first, we should be outraged at a police officer that took a life illegally. If it is the latter, we should be outraged at a culture that demeans the rule of law and glorifies lawlessness.
One thing that can be discussed already, is the perception by the black community that the police in the STL area, and the rest of the country for that matter, seem to treat young black men differently than others. Why is that? What is the root cause? My take is that the root cause lies in a bifurcation - of young black culture and police policies that lead to targeting them (intentionally or not). Both have to be addressed for that to change, IMHO.
In this case, while I don't support looting etc, I do understand the frustration they must feel and it's not uncommon for people to believe that after asking to be heard for so long and being ignored, they may be more likely to be heard if they now insist, loudly.
Very true. Desperate people take desperate actions. The looting had nothing to do with the outrage, however. If they had burned buildings or cars or whatever, that too could be considered part of the outrage (although not acceptable)... but not the looting. That was just lawlessness from people that didn't give a flying flip about Mike Brown, but only cared about themselves. And, that was very sad as well. I've seen a very large number of good people being interviewed on TV that were there protesting, that only wanted to effect a change for the better. The criminals? They just wanted to be criminals and get some free stuff.
It does not necessarily make them criminals or invalidate their complaint(s).
No, it doesn't. It may make it more difficult, to be taken seriously though. Not because they don't have a message, but because the message isn't targeted, except for the chants and sound bites. To make a real change, they should take a page from Martin Luther King, Jr., and that would give them a seat at the table rather than being seen more as a loose group that doesn't have a clear and targeted goal.
I also don't think we should allow ourselves to be distracted from an injustice that does in fact exist just because we don't happen to like the way a few people being affected by that injustice choose to protest it.
It depends on the injustice and how you would define it. If we are talking about how the police, on average, interact with young black men, then yes, we shouldn't be distracted from that. But, as I said before, we can't expect just one side to make a change, when the other side (as an overwhelming culture, if not a group) should also look at the actions of some within that culture that promulgate that added scrutiny that leads to more interactions with police which can lead to unpleasant (and unreasonably harsh) as well as unacceptable outcomes. It will take a holistic approach to solve that problem.
Overall, we agree.
