Ferguson Misunderstandings

This article has nothing to do with the innocence or guilt of officer Wilson, nor of the demeanor or actions of the late Mr Brown. Those have already been scrutinized and over analyzed again and again for too long. This has to do with what is going through everyone's heads that has made the discussion of the subject so volatile.

I tried to sum up on Facebook in one concise post the thought processes of both sides of the debate; the idea was that those siding with Wilson felt that accusers jumped the gun when they called him racist and violent, while those against him were using emotion from past racist events similar to this were automatically assuming that those accusations were correct. In part, I was right, but I quickly learned that there was a while new dimension to the argument.

I began to comment back and forth with a young man on the post believing my assumptions accurate. He posted an article on the frequency of police indictments, indicating that the court system was rigged in Wilson's favor. I claimed that the frequency of indictments had nothing to do with the innocence or guilt of Wilson and that it was a completely separate issue. He then contested that the prosecutor failed to proceed in an objective and consistent manner with the witnesses, citing sources and they were all pretty legitimate articles. I respond with other newspaper entries and statements made by police officers and whatnot.

The conversion got slightly more heated than calm, but stayed much more civil than my escapade in April about modest clothing. We ended up agreeing that neither one of us had the answer to whether out not be should be indicted or punished for his actions, but we did agree that there are issues with the court system that need to get fixed. We never once even brought up anything about race in our banter, which surprised me a little at first.

I'm glad for the time that I took to slug it out and try to stand my ground on the issue some listening to my opponent by rephrasing what I thought he was trying to say. When I did, he was able to clarify why what I had asserted initially was uninformed and I learned a whole lot. I'm excited to see what my next controversial conversation had to offer for my non formal education about life.

Click here to read the full conversation