The streets of Ferguson had grown quiet, but this was not to last. After weeks of deliberation and hours upon hours of testimony, the grand jury tasked with determining whether or not Office Darren Wilson should be charged with any crime in the shooting death of Michael Brown finally released its findings: no crimes were committed. With the announcement of this news—which was guaranteed to make people unhappy no matter which way it went—rioting once again broke out in Ferguson, MO and demonstrations have been going on across the country. After days of buildup before Monday during which officials from various levels of society urged people to respond peacefully whatever the news happened to be, the response on the ground was exactly what everyone hoped wouldn’t happen. In the intervening days reactions to the news and the ensuing violence have come from the President all the way to just about everyone who has a Facebook account.
Following suit, here are some of my thoughts. First and foremost, this situation is a tragedy from start to finish. There is not a single part of this story that shouldn’t lead us to mourning. We should mourn for the Brown family in that they lost their son. We should also mourn for Officer Wilson in that he has to bear the weight of having taken a life. Additionally, he has to bear the weight of the national spotlight—something he was certainly not seeking—death threats against him and his family, and seeking new employment with a load of infamy on his shoulders that many employers won’t be eager to help bear. That can’t be easy. We should mourn over the lingering divide between black and white that persists in this country and the inequitable treatment of people of color by law enforcement in general. As much as many might like to think otherwise, young men whose skin isn’t white are treated with more suspicion than their white peers by not only the police, but by society in general. The expectations on them are different and not in complementary ways. This is an unjust state of affairs, and we should both mourn it and actively work to correct it.
We should also mourn over the broken culture that has so much of the young, inner-city black and Hispanic communities in its grip and which leads many black and brown young people to adopt a lifestyle that not merely embraces, but actively celebrates violence, misogyny, disrespect of authority, drug use, sexual immorality, false ideas of manliness, and general social irresponsibility, inviting the kind of unjust treatment of minorities I just mentioned. These attitudes and ideas exist in other places, but nowhere with the kind of concentration they have in the inner-city. The gross immorality of this cultural movement is borne out in the appallingly high percentage of black-on-black crime (particularly murders), the crisis of fatherlessness in minority communities in particular and the terrible social consequences this has, and the general nihilism that undergirds these attitudes and behaviors. Bright spots certainly exist should be celebrated, but they sadly tend to be the exception rather than the rule.
We should mourn that so many have decided that the best way to express their anger over the outcome of the grand jury investigation is to hurt innocent people, many of whom share the same skin color and thus become victims of a double injustice: society’s-at-large, and that of their peers who have embraced violence as a solution to the problem. At the same time, we should mourn that our justice system has gotten it wrong enough times that many people – especially minorities – are cynical and mistrustful of it.
We should mourn that some have responded to this situation by finding their not-nearly-incipient-enough racist assumptions about “them” subtly justified: “‘Those people’ are the problem and if they would just show proper respect for authority and do what was necessary to fix their situation, we wouldn’t be in this place. That young man undoubtedly got what he deserved and that police officer is a hero.” We should also mourn that some have responded to this situation by finding their not-nearly-incipient-enough assumptions that the United States is hopelessly corrupt and the only proper attitude is one of deep cynicism subtly justified: “All those stories about America being a great country are a nationalistic lie and our real heritage is built entirely on the backs of oppressed peoples. The only way to make things any better is to point out as often as we can what an awful country this really is, this blatant miscarriage of justice being only the most recent example.” Both of these attitudes are incorrect and unhelpful and allow no progress toward a solution to the problems that do exist.
We should gather together and mourn all these things. Then, we should turn ourselves to the God who values all people the same and who is perfectly just and, with gratitude, pray for His kingdom to come quickly. We should listen well to our brothers and sisters in the faith who are not white, hear their pain and frustration, and work toward genuine, biblical reconciliation—the kind that can only come through Christ—in all the ways we can. We should take the voice of the prophets into places and lives ruled by broken cultural movements and proclaim the truth there with boldness and love. We should point out places where our justice system has erred and advocate for truth and justice to win the day. We should offer care and support to those who have been victims of injustice—whether by the system itself or by those protesting the system—all in the name of the God who is both just and loving.
Personally, I think Officer Wilson made a tragic, split-second decision that no one in law enforcement wants to face, and did so with the goal in mind of preserving his own life. I also think Michael Brown was probably a good kid who got sucked in by an evil culture and became a casualty of it. I think the grand jury findings in this case were probably correct given all the available evidence. I also think the Brown family and much of the black community has something about which to be upset, particularly in the wake of the even more recent Staton Island grand jury decision that was almost certainly incorrect and unjust which simply reiterates the fact that there is a problem here in need of a solution. I think there is a way through this storm to real peace on the other side. But I also think that if we don’t as a nation turn to the God who is just, we’ll never get there.