I have been unable to bring myself to write a blogpost on #Ferguson for weeks now. Reading the updates is overwhelmingly heart wrenching. However, my sadness and pain won’t shield me from the myriad of stupid, wilfully ignorant and racist comments and memes that pops up on my newsfeed. If anything, those comments, status updates and memes contribute to my pain and anger. Michael Brown, 19, was unarmed when he was shot eight times in the middle of a street in Ferguson. And now, there is the case of Eric Garner, an African American choked to death by a white police officer.
It is disheartening when in an attempt to deny the racial aspect involved in Mike Brown’s murder, people who should know better post things like:
“This is not a race thing”
“I married a white person, my in-laws are white and they are not racists “
“All black people are not criminals; All white people are not racists”
“What if Mike brown was white?”
“Can’t we just move on?”
“But all lives matter!”
Those comments expose the comfortable ignorance people maintain on race related issues. Many white people are quick to deny white privilege. Some black people are quick to exclaim in unison with their white in-laws, “Not all white people are racists, can’t we just move on?”
An atheist black friend who should know better posted a video purportedly showing Mike Brown shoplifting, without any clarification and the first commenter, another black person, immediately wrote, “He shoplifted, he should be shot.” [Read more…]