Chicken Soup with the Ferguson Kool-Aid drinkers...

This post isn't my usual bashing of sociopath enablers, but it's close...

I held off writing about Ferguson until everyone had the opportunity to swill their fill of Al Sharpton's and MLK III's favorite beverage.

Let's begin with the general situation:

Our two term President of the United States is a black man.
George W. Bush's secretary of state was a black woman.
His chairman of the joint chiefs was a black man.
My primary care physician is a black man.
Black men and women are mayors, senators, and congressmen.
America has black astronauts, scientists, engineers, attorneys, lobbyists, corporate executives, fighter pilots, and admirals.

None of these people are paper thin minority hires.  They all sought higher education and earned what they now have.

When I watch movies and television shows I see black characters in positions of authority performing complex tasks competently.  Anyone born after 1980 has been saturated with positive images of black characters.  Unlike when I was a child, it is now normal for the public to think of black people as equals.

The claim that you are poor because you're black isn't just unrealistic...it's absolutely ludicrous.

Now let's move on to Ferguson:

A large, physically powerful young man named Michael Brown (not a baby, not a boy, a man) was videotaped robbing a store and using his physical size to threaten and intimidate a scrawny looking store clerk.  Be aware of what Mr. Brown was really doing.  He wasn't just stealing some cheap cigars.  He was sending a clear message to the victim that he can walk in and take anything he wants whenever he wants.  Establishing the right to take from others was his real crime.  And the fact that he committed this crime in front of a video camera indicates that he was sending another message to all past and future victims.

Go ahead and call the cops bitch.  I'll make an example of you when I come back.

A few minutes after demonstrating his character in front of the whole world he attacked a police officer and attempted to take his weapon.  Fortunately for all of his past and future victims his attempt failed spectacularly.

Shortly after that the Al Sharpton/MLK III Traveling Circus rolled into town and began handing out tall, cool glasses of Kool-Aid to anyone dumb enough to accept a drink.  The rabble rousing began in earnest.  Blacks were reminded again and again that their lack of success in life, indeed every ache and pain, every case of the sniffles, every broken shoelace they've ever experienced was the result of white people conspiring to make their lives difficult.  One news broadcast included a clip of MLK III thinly calling for the murder of a police officer by saying that he did not believe in the death penalty, but if he did he would certainly apply it to the officer who murdered Michael Brown.  Martin Luther King Jr. must be rolling over in his grave as his son so blithely demonstrated that the content of a man's character is anything but genetic.  Black criminals poured in from surrounding communities and even from out of state to partake in the looting and burning thinly encouraged by these two racist knuckleheads.  And when all of the smoke and dust clears and no one wants to invest money or write insurance in Ferguson, they'll probably blame that on white racism as well.  The circus rolls on...

Here's the situation as I see it:

If you go into a poor white neighborhood and ask each resident individually why they are poor you'll probably hear a variety of answers.  If you perform the same survey in a poor black neighborhood you'll overwhelmingly be told that they are poor solely due to white racism.  There still exists a universally agreed upon scapegoat long after traditional white on black racism has diminished to the point where the Al Sharpton/MLK III Traveling Circus has to crisscross the country in search of opportunities to manufacture it.  This is called cultural inertia, the tendency to cling to outdated beliefs and ideas long after they no longer serve a purpose.

As I explained in the first section of this post, America has changed enormously in the past half century in terms of the average black man or woman's ability to achieve success.  But that's only a statistical average.  There are large numbers of people who remain poor, don't have any idea how to improve their life, and harbor an enormous amount of resentment.  Poor white people don't have annoying rabble rousers to direct their hatred in a politically desired direction.  Poor black people have the Al Sharpton/MLK III Traveling Circus telling them exactly who to blame.

And they're following that circus and eagerly swilling the Kool-Aid in vast numbers.

Let's be realistic here.  If you are born into poverty regardless of race or color, you're very likely to stay poor.  It isn't racism.  It's just a crippling reality that poor children spend their formative years in the company of adult relatives who are poor and angry about it, neighbors who are poor and angry about it, and classmates who are poor and angry about it.  Rarely is a poor child surrounded by people who consistently demonstrate a healthy respect for learning, education, and self improvement.

Michael Brown died because he was raised in an environment where violence and intimidation are equated with status and success.  He did not die because he was black.  Stop drinking the Kool-Aid.