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Aug. 18, 2014 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

39:06

2775 The Truth About Michael Brown and the Ferguson Riots

Ferguson, Missouri has been engulfed in rioting and looting following the death of 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown. Officer Darren Wilson, a white policeman, shot and killed Brown on the streets of Ferguson - a tragic incident that became the catalyst for a wave of civil unrest in the local community. What happened? Who is responsible? What is the truth about Michael Brown and the Ferguson Riots?

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	Hi everybody, this is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	It is with a heavy heart that we turn our attention to Ferguson, Missouri, where recently a young black man, Michael Brown, was shot by a white policeman in the street.
	And we have, for the last two days, been combing over every source of information that we can find.
	And thank you so much to those who donate to make this possible.
	To find out, as far as can be ascertained at the moment, the truth about Michael Brown and the Ferguson riots.
	So, a few caveats.
	Of course, all this information is in flux at the moment.
	I am not a lawyer.
	I am a researcher and a philosopher, and I believe we have the best information to date, but this is all speculative and conditional, but there are facts that you will find in this presentation that will change your perspective of what has happened.
	So let's start with the timeline.
	11.48 a.m., Officer Darren Wilson and an ambulance crew were at an unrelated call about a sick child.
	11.51 a.m., three minutes later, a 911 call reports a strong-armed robbery at a nearby convenience store.
	11.52 a.m., one minute later, the police radio dispatch gives a description of two robbery suspects who stole a very cheap, almost cigar-floor shavings brand of cigar called Swisher Sweet Cigars.
	At 12.01pm, nine minutes later, Officer Wilson encounters Michael Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson walking in the middle of the street in the 2900 block of Canfield Drive.
	Officer Wilson shoots and kills Brown following an altercation.
	12.04 p.m., a second officer and the ambulance from the sick call arrives to provide Brown medical attention, but he is declared dead at the scene.
	12.05 p.m., a police supervisor arrives at the scene of the shooting.
	Now, according to his friend, Dorian Johnson, Michael Brown put his hands up and tried to communicate to Officer Darren Wilson that he was not a threat, but Wilson continuously fired shots.
	Johnson said no one gave him a chance to live.
	Thomas Jackson, the Ferguson police chief, said Friday that backup and an ambulance were at the scene of the shooting, quote, He, Mr.
	Brown, was in the street for about three hours, or four, before they initially covered the body.
	Officer Darren Wilson was treated for injuries after the shooting, according to police.
	So what did the media have to say about this story?
	The St.
	Louis Post-Dispatch published an article with the headline, Michael Brown remembered as a, quote, gentle giant.
	The article described Brown as having died black, unarmed, and from multiple gunshots.
	The Daily Mail wrote, he was a gentle giant, timid and quiet, yet 6 foot 4 and 300 pounds, raising the possibility that the cop who killed him may have been intimidated by his size.
	The paper also ran quotes from Brown's family, including an aunt who stated, he wasn't a violent person, he was peaceful, he was a gentle giant.
	He looked like he could really do something, but he wouldn't.
	The article concluded by further implying racist undertones throughout the police department, quote, it is overwhelmingly African-American, i.e., the suburb, but all save three of the 53 police officers in the town's force are white, including the chief.
	Now, In the defense of the chief, he says that there have been active efforts for many years to recruit more blacks into the police department, but given the hostility of the black community towards the police department, this is a challenge, and possibly for other reasons as well.
	It's hard not to draw the parallels between...
	Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin.
	Freedom Radio, this show, we put out a video about the Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman case called The Truth About Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, which you'll find a link to below.
	I think it did quite a bit of good.
	One million people just on YouTube watched it and got information that was hard to find.
	And many more listen to it in audio format, and it may have done something to reduce the tensions.
	The tensions, of course, are running high because there are opposing narratives, and we'll do what we can to sort out these opposing narratives.
	Because with Trayvon Martin, in both cases, the media repeatedly used the catchphrase, unarmed teenager.
	The media called both children, and so on, and the media initially claimed that both Trayvon and Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were shot in the back.
	And even more tragically as we'll get to, Trayvon Martin, who went by the handle No Limit Nigger, and Big Mike, who is Michael Brown, recently left a convenience store with paraphernalia for drug preparation.
	Most likely, again, not proven.
	So, of course, in Trayvon Martin's case, it was Skittle and watermelon drink to make a narcotic recipe called Lean.
	And Mr.
	Brown was buying, or rather stealing, a significant quantity of very cheap cigars.
	And we can link a video to below that has over a million views called How to Roll Swisher Sweet Blunt.
	And Sweets, which is one of America's most popular and least expensive major cigar brands, are widely known to be used by marijuana smokers, who roll their own blunts by replacing the cigarello's tobacco with pot.
	And because I'm so square, I make the 60s look like the 50s, I looked all of this up because I figured, well, why would you buy the cigar, dump out the tobacco, and then put the marijuana in?
	Well, this is called a blunt.
	I won't buy them into just rolling paper.
	The difference between a blunt and a joint is the paper.
	Blunts use cigar wrappers, or swishers as you call them, and joints use regular rolling paper.
	There are many advantages to rolling a blunt, apparently, such as it burns slower so it lasts longer and you get higher.
	You can get flavored wraps, which taste a good...
	I guess flavor, flavor wraps.
	There is nicotine on the cigar wraps, so you get high from the weed and also lightheaded from the nicotine, so the high is more intense.
	They're also great for large groups of people because it lasts so long and everyone can get a few hits before it goes out.
	It burns slower, it burns at lower temperatures, so less of the THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, is destroyed, and some like the taste.
	According to an internet denizen, blunts are better, smiley face.
	They can add a certain flavor to your weed and they last longer and burn slower than joints do.
	In my opinion, you get way higher from a blunt than a joint.
	So, let's have a look at who is allegedly Michael Brown and his co-conspirator in the power snatch of these cigars from the convenience store.
	There was a lot of physical intimidation.
	Of course, Michael Brown is a fairly hefty fellow, and he intimidated the store clerk.
	Now, the store clerk apparently was reported to have called in the 911 call, but Theta claims not to have it.
	It could have been an onlooker.
	During an appearance on NBC, Al Sharpton said, We've got to solve the problem, and we've got to make the criminal justice system work for people like Michael Brown.
	Otherwise, we're not the country that we claim to be.
	Sharpton also continued the portrayal of Brown as a, quote, gentle giant.
	CNN went with the headline, Michael Brown, teen shot by police days before college, continuing the gentle giant narrative and noting that he was proud to be setting an example for his siblings.
	The Washington Post also reported on the story using the gentle giant phrase in a piece highlighting Brown's graduation from high school and supposed timidness.
	He had never gotten into a fight in his entire life, said a family friend.
	We don't know the exact details, of course, of the altercation between Officer Darren Wilson and Michael Brown that led to Brown's death, but based upon the available evidence, we do know that there's not a huge amount of evidence to support the gentle giant narrative.
	So the video that we saw, and according to a police report, Brown and his friend Dorian Johnson were performing a strong-arm robbery with store staff and stealing a box of cigars on Saturday, shortly before midday.
	Brown grabbed a box of Swisher sweet cigars and handed them to Johnson, says the report.
	And a witness, whose name is redacted, basically told Brown he had to pay for the cigars first, and as you saw, Brown reached across the counter and grabbed numerous packs of the cigars and turned to leave the store.
	A witness called 911.
	Someone else came out from behind the counter and attempts to stop Brown from leaving.
	As you saw, Brown grabbed this person by the shirt and forcefully pushed him back into the display rack.
	And X backed away, Brown further intimidated, and then they both, Brown and Johnson, exited the store with the cigars.
	The report described Brown as 6'4 and weighing 292 pounds.
	Media headlines noted that it was alleged that Michael Brown was the suspect in the footage.
	A man named Eric Davis spoke to the media on behalf of the family, saying that the release of the store robbery videotape was smoke and mirrors, whatever that might mean.
	Whatever took place in the grocery store does not reflect what happened on Canfield, the street where the confrontation took place.
	Brown's family expressed outrage at the devious way the police chief has chosen to disseminate piecemeal information in a manner intended to assassinate the character of their son.
	Now, Eric Holder's DOJ, Department of Justice, urged Ferguson Police not to release surveillance video arguing that the footage would further inflame tensions which have led to rioting and civil unrest.
	Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson noted that he had no choice but to release the video as media made multiple requests under the Freedom of Information Act.
	After releasing the tape on Friday, and this has caused some confusion on the web, police said that Officer Darren Wilson, the shooter, didn't know Michael Brown was a suspect in a robbery when he stopped the teen and subsequently shot him dead in Ferguson.
	But speaking later in the day, Chief Jackson offered a different version of events, saying that Officer Darren Wilson became suspicious of Brown after spotting a box of cigars in his hands that had been reported stolen.
	And we'll get into more of the details of the interaction or the altercation in a moment.
	Chief Jackson explained that the officer initially stopped Brown from walking in the middle of the street, but as he drove away, the officer made the connection regarding the convenience store robbery.
	So, Michael Brown and his friends were walking down the middle of the street, holding the cigars, and the officer said, get off the street, and then he started to drive away, made the connection, recognized the cigars, went back to try and question them, and this is when the altercation occurred.
	Now, this gentle giant, Michael Brown, recorded a collection of rap tracks with friends and posted them to SoundCloud, and again, we'll put the link here below.
	I'm not sure how long they will stay up.
	In the songs, they reference a stealing, smoking marijuana, herb, dope, weed, loud, and purple.
	Both terms for high-quality marijuana, I'm told.
	Having lots of casual sex with women, bitches, hoes, and honeys, as well as using guns, and fighting to solve conflicts.
	Now, clearly...
	This is not an offense.
	To make rap music is not an offense.
	But it does speak to the narrative of, you know, gentle, giant, never got into a fight, a fine, virtuous young man, and so on.
	So we got a few of the lyrics, I guess you could call them, from the songs that Michael Brown had recorded.
	And they go something like this.
	Fucking with me, you gon' end up in a trash bag somewhere in Pakistan.
	Real niggers don't play that.
	Do you play that?
	Another one is, feel my pain.
	My own mama don't give a damn.
	I just want a real bitch.
	Smoke dope and kill shit.
	And if we catch you slacking, we gon' blow your fucking brains out.
	We bought the click-clack to make them niggers feel it.
	Click-clack, I think here is being used as a gun.
	Apparently that's amateur gang-banging.
	Click-clack actually refers to a dice game.
	Craps.
	Here's another one.
	Shit-talkers, dog-walker, I'm a clip-sparker.
	Big hole in your head.
	I'll turn you into a...
	Couldn't figure that one out.
	I smoke loud.
	I be coughing.
	It keep me up like coffee.
	Don't get to feeling soft.
	You fuck with me and get a coughing.
	We heard yo got that cash, so we rumble through yo stash.
	He rapped in a song entitled Forgiveness, Big Mike.
	Smoking on the dope till I choke.
	Later in the lyrics, he also raps, do you smoke weed?
	Keep doing what you do best.
	Now, for somebody who apparently had, or reportedly from the family, had never been in a fight, he really enjoyed watching videos of street fights again.
	A few people on the internet may have watched videos of an orgy.
	Doesn't mean they've actually, right?
	But nonetheless.
	On his personal Facebook account, Brown had clicked on the like to Crazy School Fights, OMG Fights, and Fight Life, which are pages dedicated to posting street fights, including man-on-woman violence.
	Brown also clicked like on High Times Magazine, which apparently is not about the airline industry.
	Also on his Facebook photos were images of Michael Brown flashing middle fingers and hand signs which may be associated with the Bloods street gang.
	Anthony Gray, a local attorney for the family, said they never described him as the perfect kid and claimed that they had done their best to keep him on the right path.
	The lawyer also added, no one out there is proud of everything they have done when they were a teenager.
	Now, Officer Darren Wilson...
	One, a commendation for extraordinary effort in the line of duty in February.
	It was revealed today.
	Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson said the shooting had been devastating, absolutely devastating to Wilson, adding, we had no complaints about the officer.
	He was a gentleman, a quiet officer.
	He has been an effective officer.
	He is 28 years old.
	He has a sister and a half-brother.
	According to public records, his mother died in 2002.
	Now, we don't have information to contradict this.
	It doesn't mean it's not out there, but I'm trying to give as round a picture as possible.
	Now, the Ferguson Market, where the strong-arm theft occurred before the tragic shooting, they have said that the owners want to stay as far away from the shooting as possible.
	They said, contrary to the police report, it was a customer who called police after the theft.
	Their attorney said it's not about them, they didn't call the police, they didn't ask the police to come and take the video.
	Now, the Ferguson Market owners are hoping that the video won't make them a target.
	The Ferguson Market was also among the businesses that were looted in the wake of the protests.
	Now, what about Michael Brown's I guess we could say friend, Dorian Johnson.
	So after the release of the convenience store footage, Dorian Johnson confirmed through his attorney that he and Brown had taken part in the theft of the cigars.
	When he was asked if, well, wasn't that basically lying to the police by omission, because Dorian Johnson didn't initially mention the convenience store robbery when giving his statement to police or talking to the media, his attorney noted that the police had not asked what he had done prior to the shooting.
	According to authorities, Dorian Johnson also has an outstanding arrest warrant for theft.
	Johnson was arrested June 24, 2011, in Jefferson City, Missouri.
	The police arrested him after a report of a suspect walking away from an apartment with a package that was discovered to have contained a backpack.
	Johnson reportedly lied to the police about his identity and age.
	At the time of the arrest.
	Now, he's a few years older than Michael Brown.
	Johnson's attorney, former St.
	Louis Mayor Freeman Bosley Jr., acknowledged his client had been arrested in Jefferson City for theft of a parcel, but insists that the case was, quote, resolved.
	He was held in jail in St.
	Louis for 14 days, waiting on Cole County to come get him, based on the warrant.
	They never came, so the city let him go.
	So, not a good job, Mr.
	Police People.
	The Jefferson County Court Clerk insists, however, that there is an order for Johnson's extradition if he is arrested within a 50-mile radius of Jefferson City.
	Ferguson is more than 100 miles from Jefferson City.
	So, Here are the versions of what has occurred.
	So, again, according to Michael Brown's friend, he was basically shot, begging for his life, claiming he wasn't threat, execution style, and so on.
	The other side of the story, and again, time will tell, and forensics will tell, and I think a third autopsy has been ordered now by the Department of Justice.
	So we'll find out over time, but this is what appears to be the statements or the stories on either side.
	So a woman...
	Who appeared on the Dana show, this is a radio show, under the name Josie, talked about Officer Darren Wilson's side of the story.
	She is allegedly a friend of Wilson's fiancée, and she told the radio host that Dorian Johnson and Michael Brown were walking up the middle of the street, and Wilson pulled up and told them to get out of the street.
	They refused to do that and responded back with insults.
	Wilson pulled up ahead and kept watching them, but then he got a call that there was a strong-arm robbery in a convenience store.
	After he was given a description of the suspects, he saw what appeared to be cigars...
	The officer then approached Brown and Johnson in his car, but when he tried to get out, Brown slammed his door shut violently.
	Wilson eventually got out, but Brown, a bum rushed him, just crowded him into the car, shoved him back in the car and punched him in the face.
	Brown reached for the officer's gun, and a struggle ensued during which The gun fired, went off inside the car.
	To my knowledge, nobody knows whether it was Brown or it was the officer who fired the gun.
	Brown then ran away after the shot was fired with his friend and managed to get about 35 feet away from the car, at which point the officer yelled, Freeze!
	They turned around and Brown started taunting the cop.
	Oh, what are you going to do about it?
	You're not going to shoot me.
	So, Brown started running full speed towards the cop, and Wilson started shooting.
	This didn't stop Brown, and it took a shot to the head to finally end his charge.
	Brown fell dead about two or three feet away from the officer.
	Wilson believed he was high on drugs because Brown kept approaching him despite the gunshot wounds.
	So that is, again, third party, unverified, but this is what is believed to be the officer's side of the story.
	Now there's another video.
	A local used a cell phone camera to record the events that unfolded immediately after the shooting.
	It's a tragic video.
	Again, we'll put the link to it below.
	Now the video picked up a conversation almost entirely by accident where an eyewitness confirmed that Brown was charging the cop.
	So one man says, how'd he get from there to there?
	And another person says, because he ran.
	The police was still in the truck.
	Because he was like over the truck.
	I think that means the police car.
	And this crosstalk continues, but him and the police was both in the truck.
	Then he ran.
	The police got out and ran after him.
	Then the next thing I knew, he, Michael Brown, doubled back towards the cop.
	Because the police had his gun drawn already on him.
	The man says, oh, the police got his gun.
	Another person says, the police kept dumping on him, which is shooting at him, and I'm thinking the police kept missing.
	He like, be like, but he kept coming toward him.
	Police fired shots.
	The next thing I know, the police was missing.
	The police.
	The police shot him.
	Police.
	The next thing I knew, I'm thinking, the dude started running, garbled something about, he took it from him.
	So, According to the friend of the fiancé, Michael Brown doubled back and was charging the cop when the cop shot him repeatedly because he wasn't stopping.
	And an independent witness talking off camera says the same thing.
	This, I argue and I understand, is not proof, but it is supporting evidence.
	This eyewitness account clarifies other issues and disputes that Michael Brown was shot in the back.
	And again, you can watch the video.
	And Michael Brown's body is positioned head towards the police vehicle.
	So if he's coming at the policeman, the policeman's shooting him, then he's going to fall face down with his head towards the police vehicle.
	So, Josie's story and the eyewitnesses match the less detailed statements by St.
	Louis County Police Chief Joe Belmar and Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson.
	Jackson also told reporters that Wilson, the officer, was being treated for injuries and that he was hit and that the side of his face was swollen.
	In some areas or some webpages, there have been descriptions that his injuries were critical, but I've not found any confirmation of that.
	Now, This is a comment that I read.
	I haven't confirmed this, but it is, I think, a perspective that's important.
	So the policeman seems to report.
	He says, In my 31 years on the job as an LEO, eight officers were killed in my state with their own weapons.
	One fellow officer I worked with was chased down and executed by the, quote, unarmed suspect.
	It's my contention that if a suspect is willing and crazy enough to take on a uniformed, armed police officer in a physical fight, then he has to realize that he has become a deadly threat to that officer.
	Know this.
	Even the strongest, toughest cop can lose a fight.
	All it takes is one lucky punch.
	One punch!
	And now you're dazed and maybe unconscious, and now the attacker is armed with your weapon.
	Ask yourself what you would do.
	You have already been assaulted once and the suspect has attempted to take your gun away and it has discharged once, almost hitting you.
	Now you have the suspect at gunpoint and are trying to make an arrest.
	Suddenly, the 6'4", 290-pound man charges you at full speed.
	In two seconds or less, he will be on you and now you must decide in one half a second your response.
	And most times when officers have to decide to use deadly force, they have about two seconds to make that decision.
	Now, there are two conditions in general wherein American police officers are allowed to use deadly force.
	One is to protect their own lives or the lives of an innocent bystander.
	That's number one.
	And the second is if a suspect is fleeing and the officer has reason to believe that the suspect has committed a violent felony, then he is allowed to shoot.
	Now, if Brown was charging at the officer, then he would have to defend himself.
	If this is the case, again, we have one third-party witness, one direct witness recorded on camera saying that Brown was charging the officer.
	I don't believe, again, this is amateur hour on the web, so take everything I'm saying with the usual grain of salt, but I don't believe that the convenience store robbery represented a violent felony.
	It was strong-arming, it was pushing, it was shoving, it was intimidation.
	The officer may not have known the details enough.
	He may have just assumed it was shoplifting.
	However, if you have just assaulted an officer, punched him, and either gone for his gun or a gun has gone off, and then you charge him again, well, you just did commit a violent felony, which was to attack the cop.
	So, under those situations and circumstances, again, we can question whether these are appropriate or not, but those are, as far as I understand it, again, from an amateur perspective, those are the standards by which police are permitted to use deadly force.
	So let's...
	Try and pull back a little bit from this tragedy.
	And again, my heart goes out to everyone involved for what that's worth.
	I mean, the family are grieving the loss of a son.
	The police officer is obviously facing significant dangers.
	They were initially hesitant, the police force, to reveal his name because of a number of death threats that had been received.
	And then the media helpfully pointed out how to get to his house and show the street name and number and so on.
	It was tragic all around.
	But look, Michael Brown made a series of extraordinary bad decisions.
	Disasters tend not to happen out of nowhere.
	It's a whole series of bad decisions.
	Number one, he went into a convenience store which had security cameras and robbed in plain sight.
	No hoodie, no face mask.
	He robbed in plain sight.
	That's not particularly smart.
	The possibility is that his judgment was impaired.
	Now, we won't know the toxicology report for another six weeks because apparently it has to be sent to Mars and back, but it's possible that he had drugs in his system.
	It's hard to understand how his decision-making could be that bad if he was not high on something or had his judgment impaired in some manner, perhaps drunk or something like that.
	So he goes and he robs in full camera Next, he's walking down the middle of the street.
	Now, I don't know about you, but if I'm a criminal who's just stolen something, I'm gonna try and get inside and be as inconspicuous as possible.
	No, he's walking down the middle of the street.
	He's not hiding.
	Next, He assaulted the cop.
	Now, the cop's injuries can't be ignored.
	Of course, the media is going to try to ignore them in the same way they tried to ignore George Zimmerman's injuries, but the injuries can't be ignored.
	Unless the cop...
	I mean, the degree of conspiracy you'd have to believe in to imagine the cop smashed himself in the face and this and that and the other.
	So he assaulted the cop.
	Not a good idea.
	Then he was running away.
	And again, according to a third-party report and a direct eyewitness report, he turned back to attack the policeman.
	These are a series of incredibly bad decisions.
	So does this mean that his judgment was impaired?
	I have to assume so.
	If people say he was going to college, and I have no reason to disbelieve that, people who are going to go to college usually don't make a series of decisions that bad unless they're impaired.
	In some manner.
	So, that is part of the tragedy.
	A lot of this, of course, let's say, and this, again, I really, really want to, I know I'm repeating myself, I really want people to understand that most of this is speculation, but the facts that we can draw from, or the inferences we can draw from the speculations, are still very important.
	I am, like many people, a huge opponent of the war on drugs.
	The war on drugs, particularly for disadvantaged youth, is a great giant black hole sucking them into a life of highly profitable, highly dangerous crime that is absolutely destructive in the long run.
	So I just really wanted to point that out, that this is another example of the degree to which the war on drugs is causing problems.
	I do find myself frustrated by this constant repetition of unarmed, as if a nearly 300 pounds, 6 foot 4 young man can't possibly be dangerous unless he's armed.
	I mean, I guess if unarmed means non-dangerous, then there can't ever be any attacks or assaults or rapes in prison, because in prison everyone's unarmed, right?
	So, this idea of the unarmed teen, it's just a code to try and rile people up.
	And the race baiters are incredibly frustrating in this situation.
	There is a rush to judgment.
	There is a narrative designed to provoke a strong emotional response from a beleaguered community.
	That is incredibly frustrating, for reasons we'll get to in a minute or two.
	Now...
	The question, of course, is crime.
	Crime in the black community is a huge and significant problem, mostly for other blacks, and to a smaller degree, to other races.
	But I do have some significant issues.
	We're going to do a whole separate presentation on race and crime, but I would really hesitate for everyone, don't jump on the immediate bandwagon that the source of crime is poverty, and people are poor, and then they commit crimes.
	Americans lost massive amounts of wealth, including blacks, in the Great Depression in the 1930s, and crime went down.
	Americans have lost 40% of their wealth since 2008.
	Crime has gone down over the past two years.
	People who steal are often not stealing necessities.
	They have to eat, and therefore they go and steal stuff.
	So, it's not as easy as saying the first domino is poverty, the second domino is crime.
	Because crime also creates poverty.
	How many businesses are going to want to go into Ferguson now and set up shop and hire people and help people get to the middle class?
	Well, crime also could be viewed equally as the first domino, which then...
	Falls a second domino of poverty.
	So it's not as simple.
	And please try and refrain from jumping on that bandwagon.
	There are also other cultures wherein there's significant poverty but not significant associated crime statistics.
	So if all poverty creates crime, then all cultures that are poor should be criminals to equal degrees.
	This is simply not the case.
	So it's not simply that poverty creates crime.
	I was raised, and I still strongly and staunchly hold to this belief, to be a race equalist.
	It is frustrating to see blacks riot after something like this, before the facts are in, while facts are still coming in.
	White people didn't riot after the O.J. Simpson verdict.
	White people didn't riot when Reginald Denny was pulled out of his truck and brained with a brick during the Rodney King riots.
	It is really, really important for blacks and for whites and...
	Religious people, and not to fall into this narrative that is immediately racial, that it's an all-youth-killed execution style while begging for his life.
	Look, if that turns out to be the case, you know, terrible, terrible.
	But that will be clearly determined by the evidence.
	In which case, the police officer will go to jail for life, and there will be significant reforms which will be welcomed by everyone.
	But we cannot rush to judgment as yet.
	Innocent until proven guilty is a foundation of Anglo-Saxon law, and blacks have been around Western culture long enough to really understand this.
	So, it bothers me that a community which is rightly and justly angry about historical lynching, which was when a black conformed in the minds of whites to a particular stereotype, often to do with raping a white woman, then there'd be a lynching.
	But if there's a stereotype in the black community called, you know, racist white cops gun down black children, it's hard to see how it's not similar.
	In emotional nature to lynching when people get violent before the facts all come in.
	Rap culture and its nihilism and its thug worship and its advocation of violence towards women, violence towards cops, it is incredibly nihilistic.
	You know, I always hear they say, oh, video games cause violence.
	I don't see a lot of studies about rap music causing violence, but it would be interesting to know if there is a correlation.
	It is also frustrating that here we have, by all evidence, a young man who's going off the rails.
	Right?
	Who's got nihilistic, incredibly violent, misogynistic rap lyrics.
	And also seems to have posted a few days before he died about if I leave this world kind of thing.
	We have a young man going off the rails.
	And he goes off the rails.
	And then massive amounts of community energy gets activated in response.
	It would really be nice to see the same amount or more of community energy involved in Trying to prevent these young men and women, but mostly men, going off the rails.
	Illegitimacy in the black community is monstrous, as we talked about in the Trayvon Martin video.
	Spanking and other forms of child abuse and assault are very high within the black community.
	And this needs to be fixed within the black community.
	Focus on raising your children peacefully.
	You will have amazing results that come out of that.
	Negotiation rather than violence to be used in the raising of children would be a fantastic step forward.
	There's very little that we can get that is good out of these horrible kinds of tragedies.
	But if this death were to spark an examination from the black community within the black community to focus on peaceful parenting, to focus on a two-parent family, 70% plus of black children are born outside, This is not a result of slavery, because it was much better a generation or two ago.
	The welfare state has completely failed.
	We have to understand that, at least.
	The cities which are decaying the fastest are mostly in the control of the progressive, the liberals, the democrats, the leftists.
	These...
	Interventions, these massive redistributions of wealth, the public housing, the food stamps, the welfare, this has not worked.
	Public schools are terrible.
	We need to start thinking of other ways to solve social problems than the automatic reaching for the gun of the state to redistribute the wealth of society.
	This does not work.
	This does not work.
	And we need to start becoming creative and not automatically reaching.
	To the deep pockets of the state to fund the increasingly obvious social disasters of leftist experimentation.
	I think we have to ask ourselves, my friends, what is more likely?
	What is more likely?
	Did a cop with seven years of an unblemished record with zero complaints, he's been policing An almost exclusively black community for seven years.
	He's had zero complaints against him.
	Most likely, the child, the baby really, who he was just helping was a black baby.
	What are the odds that this guy has just been laying low for seven years, building up good community relations, being an effective and, by all accounts, responsible police officer, that he is just a black-hating, murderous racist?
	The odds of that seem to me quite low.
	On the other hand, if we look at the judgments displayed by Michael Brown and his friend robbing a convenience store with witnesses, with cameras, walking down the middle of the street, not hiding, screaming at cops, assaulting Michael Brown, assaulting cops, what are the odds that the cop just woke up and decided to go execution-style in front of witnesses, shoot A black man.
	Cops are hugely aware of the danger they're going to put themselves in if they shoot a black man.
	I mean, cops are very aware of what happened to George Zimmerman.
	His life is pretty much ruined, even though he was found not guilty.
	So why would he do that?
	Well, you can come up with, oh, he was intimidated by his size, or he was dazed, or he was whatever, right?
	He was hit, he was angry, right?
	But if Michael Brown was charging at him, all of that is irrelevant.
	If Michael Brown was charging him after having assaulted him once, he is perfectly legitimate in using deadly force to protect himself.
	Especially if it turns out, again, speculation, if it turns out that Michael Brown was high, and of course given his size, bullets would have an effect but not immediately, then It is a tragic situation, but it is not an execution of an innocent young black man by a racist white cop.
	We have to defy these narratives.
	They may be emotionally compelling, they may fit a whole nihilistic, misogynistic rap culture, but we must restrain our judgments before the facts come fully in.
	Because a lynching is a lynching is a lynching is a lynching.
	And committing seppuku on your own community standards and destroying businesses and undermining the capacity for people to come in and hire people in this neighborhood is not the way to go.
	And kudos to those protesters in Ferguson who have been protecting the businesses from the looters.
	Kudos.
	But the problems in the black community at some point are going to have to be addressed by the black community.
	And I know that some of that is happening.
	But it cannot simply be that we have all these innocent people surrounded by unbelievably, endlessly racist white people and Asian people and other people who just want to grind them down and get off and watch them writhe in poverty.
	I mean, at some point we have to challenge this narrative.
	And little good can come out Of a grim and horrible death like this.
	But if we can challenge the narrative and begin to think afresh how to solve these significant and deep problems in society, that's the only flower that I can think worthy of putting on the tragic grave of Michael Brown.

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