Last night’s shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri repeats a pattern of behavior that should shock Americans to their core. After the release of a Justice Department report alleging systematic racism by the police in Ferguson, and statements by Attorney General Eric Holder that appeared to delegitimize the entire law enforcement establishment in that town, there were demonstrations followed by what is described as an “ambush” of the police. While the responsibility for this crime belongs only to the person who fired the shots, it is still necessary to point out that those, including some of the highest officials of the land, who have sought to exploit charges against police in order to further their political agendas need to understand that inflammatory rhetoric doesn’t help heal our racial divide or promote peace on our streets.
The shooting particularly resonates because it was less than three months ago that similar events unfolded. In the aftermath of controversial rulings that absolved policemen of criminal charges in the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Eric Garner in Staten Island, the country was convulsed by demonstrations and condemnations of law enforcement personnel. But after statements by the Obama administration, the mainstream media, and those claiming to speak for the civil-rights movement blasting police, the national conversation was altered by the murder of two New York City policemen by a person who claimed to want revenge for Brown and Garner.
That tragedy allowed the nation to put these incidents in perspective and to appreciate that there was more to these issues than the narrative of racism we had been hearing so much about. But that didn’t stop the administration and its cheering section of racial hucksters such as presidential advisor Al Sharpton from returning to the rhetorical excesses that helped gin up violence in Missouri and New York last year.
The Justice Department’s reports on Ferguson deserve particular scrutiny because they illustrate just how wrong-headed much of our national conversation on race has been in the last several months. After months of harangues about the shooting of Brown being indicative of racism, the federal review of the case confirmed the decision of the Grand Jury that refused to indict Police Officer Darren Wilson for the incident. The claim that Brown had put his hands up and cried, “don’t shoot” to Wilson was rightly labeled a lie. But after the mantra was repeated endlessly in social media, demonstrations, and stunts by celebrities and athletes, for many people the truth didn’t matter.
But not satisfied with debunking the myth that Wilson had murdered Brown, Justice also issued another report nonetheless blasting the Ferguson police for racism. The rationale for the report was largely statistical. As John R. Lott wrote in the New York Post earlier this week, there is reason to dispute the report’s conclusions that the numbers demonstrate bias. But even if we are to accept the idea that Ferguson’s law enforcement practices were flawed and concede, as we should, that racism still exists in this country, it must be understood that Holder’s willingness to go so far as to dismantle the Ferguson police department in a federal purge of local authorities was an attempt to ignore or to obfuscate the facts in the Brown case. After spending so much effort demonizing police because of the Ferguson incident, the agenda here was not so much reform as it was to revive the discredited claim that Brown’s death was an apt symbol of police brutality against minorities.
What we should have learned in December and ought to finally grasp now is that those who have sought to exploit extraordinary cases like those of Brown and Garner are keeping the racial pot boiling for political purposes.
The acts of violence against police ought not to silence discussions about race or of wrongful actions on the part of law enforcement authorities. But what Holder, President Obama, Sharpton, and those who have echoed their charges in the media have done is to create a narrative of police racism that isn’t always justified by the facts. More to the point, they have created an atmosphere in which violence against police becomes not only thinkable but also expected.
After all, even before the shooting of the Ferguson cops yesterday, the New York Times was reporting that police were no longer handing out traffic tickets or doing the same sort of patrols they had done before Brown’s death because of fears of violence against them. By demonizing the police, the civil-rights movement had essentially created a law-free zone in Ferguson that cannot have done much to enhance the quality of life there. Most of all, it should be remembered that the months of demonstrations and condemnations were rooted in myths and outright lies that were given credence by national figures who should have known better.
The latest shootings should, as the December killings did, cause those trumpeting often-dubious claims of racism to think more carefully about what they are doing. Moral leadership from Washington is necessary to make good on the promise of American freedom and to recognize the achievements of the civil-rights movement. But all too often what we have gotten instead are statements aimed at wrongly portraying the America of 2015 as little different from that of 1965. Racists must be condemned and out-of-control and prejudiced law enforcement must be reformed. But what must also be changed is the kind of rhetoric that incites violence and promotes harmful myths that encourage hate and division.
