On August 9, 2014, a 6′ 4″ man named Michael Brown was shot. Brown wasn’t a boy. He was a grown man. Brown was a doughy, nearly 300-pound, directionless man-child who had stolen cigarillos from a corner store moments before. He had tried to “barter” with the clerk. Brown offered marijuana for a soda and two boxes of cigarillos. When the clerk balked, Brown reached over the counter and took them. The clerk tried to stop “Big Mike” and got shoved back into the counter.
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Although many in the media continue to claim there is a “dispute” about what led to Brown’s death, there isn’t any. At least no credible evidence that Brown was a victim. Brown wrestled with a cop, and in a life-or-death scenario, tried to take the cop’s gun away. Brown hit the officer in the face, and then after that felony assault (arguably an attempted murder of a peace officer), Brown was told to stop and submit to arrest. Instead, he turned all of his nearly 300 pounds toward Darren Wilson and charged at him, fists clenched. Wilson had just been in life and death struggle with Brown barely a minute before. Wilson didn’t wait for Brown to get face-to-face with him again. While Brown charged at Wilson, Wilson shot Brown, killing him.
But what happened wasn’t accurately reported, not the least of which was the breathless claim by Brown’s friend that Brown had his hands up and said, “Don’t shoot!” Brown’s 22-year-old companion Dorian Johnson told America that Brown was executed.
“[Michael] put his hands in the air,” Johnson said of Brown in his final moments. “He started to get down, but the officer still approached with his weapon drawn. And he fired several more shots. And my friend died.”
Media ran a photo of “Big Mike” as a child. An innocent “boy” in his high school cap and gown. The alternate was a photo of “Mikey” wearing headphones – just “chillin’.” By that evening, America was on fire. But the fire started based on a virulent lie. It was all a lie. Brown had robbed a store and then, potentially tried to murder a cop in his car. Then Brown charged at the cop he tried to beat up/or kill. Riots swept through Ferguson, Missouri. The store that Brown robbed was quickly looted to the bone. Ferguson businesses were burned to the ground.
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President Barack Obama, the man who a few years before had said, “There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America,” did what he was accomplished at doing. He stoked racial myths. He said, “It often feels as if it is being applied in discriminatory fashion,” adding to the narrative that “Big Mike” was murdered. Three months later, a Grand Jury refused to indict. But Obama, always the “healer,” said that anger was “understandable.”
About two weeks after Brown died fighting with a cop, Salon published a 2,000-word article that purported to “debunk” myths about Brown being the aggressor. Much of what Salon tried to “debunk” turned out to be true. The Grand Jury declined to charge Wilson. It was a justifiable shooting. Several brave witnesses stepped forward to testify that Brown was charging at Wilson when Wilson defended himself. Not a word of “correction” followed Salon’s nonsense article that amplified the “Brown was innocent” myth. CNN hosts raised their hands in solidarity with the prevailing myth. Incredibly, even though the “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” myth was already debunked as a bald-faced lie, CNN ran an opinion piece that Republicans should embrace the “spirit” of “Hands up Don’t Shoot.” Sure it’s a lie, but embrace the “spirit” of the lie.
Michael Brown’s ex-con father-in-law called for more violence. “Burn this bitch down,” he said. More unrest followed. A DOJ, led by the hyper-partisan race-baiter Eric Holder, conducted its own investigation and determined that, yes, all credible evidence supports that Wilson acted properly.
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Photos of Brown holding the store clerk like the clerk is a ragdoll were ignored. Brown acting like a directionless thug and inarguably attacking the cop should have closed the book on Brown’s “just an innocent black boy murdered” lie. But it didn’t
On May 20, two Congress members marked the 28th birthday of Michael Brown like he was MLK Jr. Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) (possibly the dumbest member of Congress) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who is infamous for pulling a fire alarm to stop a vote in Congress, resurrected Brown’s “innocent boy” myth and declared that Brown should be alive to celebrate his 28th birthday but police violence ended his life.
Bush narrates in front of a photo of Brown, intoning that we are “left with the memory of who he was. His life was taken.”
Bush and Bowman are comfortable with perpetuating a blatant lie, a myth of Brown’s innocence, but they don’t care. Most people find Bush and Bowman to be despicable race-hustlers. Bush and Bowman only care about perpetuating myths that get them reelected. Racial hatred and racial division are their talismans. Their false gods are Brown and George Floyd.
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Brown’s life wasn’t “taken.” He forfeited his life when he decided to commit a felony and then decided to charge an armed cop. Marking Brown’s birthday and honoring Brown as a pseudo-hero is a slap in the face to honorable black men and women who, despite threats and intimidation, stepped forward to tell the truth about what happened on August 9, 2014. They were the heroes, not Michael Brown.
See also:
Beyond Skin Deep: The Increasing Obsession With Race in America