Who killed Michael Brown?
As a white man, I must admit that I do not have the same black perspective, but I do not think it was only a policeman's bullets that killed Michael Brown. At 6-foot-4 and 290 pounds, I know what it is like to have a commanding presence that allows one to intimidate. I also remember being 18 years old with a high dose of testosterone that turned my brain to mush. Other than being white, why am I alive and Michael Brown is dead? Surely the policeman's bullets brought an end to his life, but we must not ignore the contributing factors.
Michael was the product of a broken home in a community with little to offer in terms of opportunity. Surely economic and educational poverty were a factor. There are other factors that the black community as a whole and the politically correct crowd are all too willing to ignore.
Family and community values are as much a part of who we are as the genes we carry from our parents. I grew up in a fairly small Midwest town as the grandson of immigrant grandparents who had 18 children. I was related to half of the town in some way and the rest knew my parents. No one in that community was bashful about bringing it to my attention when I violated community and family standards. I felt the love of the community in that they all had my long-term interests at heart when they disciplined me for violations of the standards of civility that they held dear. In those days, broken homes were a rarity and divorce was frowned upon. Sure there were bad marriages, but a child's need for a stable home was held paramount.
When I look at society today I see a focus on self over family and children's needs. It is highly evident in the black community where stable marriage is a rarity and the state is left with the task of raising the children. I do not know the Brown family personally, but the projected image is one of a broken home and a racially charged stepfather. The father, to his credit, asked for the community to be peaceful. On the other hand they hired an attorney to represent the family who was racially motivated to energize the community by choosing words like "killer" to describe the policeman before all the facts were known. Considering the lack of ethics of many attorneys these days, I will be watching the dollar signs as I bet there will be a civil suit settled out of court for big bucks just because it will be less expensive than defending the city of Ferguson right or wrong.
A community that then goes on the rampage burning down businesses and looting stores shows evidence of the values the community conveyed to Michael Brown as he was growing up. Let's face facts as they are evident: Michael Brown was acting like a young oversized thug when he robbed the convenience store and intimidated the clerk. He was spitting in the face of authority by walking down the middle of the street and physically challenged authority when he attacked the police officer in his car. Given his size and attitude when confronted about his actions by an authority figure, it is as if he pulled the trigger himself. The policeman was little more than a bystander in the things that killed Michael Brown.
The demonstrations across this country in response to the Ferguson incident are going to send a message to other young black children that Michael Brown's actions were appropriate and approved as community and family values within the black community. These demonstrations are going to get many of these children killed as they turn into young black men. Rather than focus on police training, we need men like our president, the attorney general, the New York mayor and civil rights spokesmen to use their bully pulpit to improve the factors I have mentioned that contributed to the young man's death. They have the opportunity - let's see if they have the will to be statesmen rather than politicians. Perhaps they identify with being black but not with being poor, uneducated, devoid of opportunity and civil values.
As a postscript, since I began writing this we now have two New York police officers gunned down by an obviously deranged black man who was likely set off by the chants of protesters chanting to "kill cops." We reap what we sow and there are others complicit in the murder of these officers by their actions and words. Words kill as well as bullets! Sadly, some are referred to as our leaders.
Donald Phelan is a Coeur d'Alene resident.