What African American Youth Learned From the Looting of Ferguson
In the aftermath of the robbery, assault, and then police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, I can offer some advice: Be sure not to forget to also steal those AAA batteries for the flat-screen remote. It is frustrating to get home and not have them. Then you just have to turn around and go back to the convenience store, where they are expensive, and choke a hapless clerk to get your batteries.
To be fair, at least when you loot a TV you don't have to fight off that store clerk's hard sell, hot boxing you into buying the extended warranty.
Police shootings are not a major issue. There were 12 million total arrests in the United States in 2012 and, according to FBI statistics; there were only 420 police shootings during those 12 million arrests. The highest percent of those shot, 42 percent, were white. Blacks were 32 percent and Hispanics 20 percent -- about in line with crimes committed. But shootings only happened in .000035 percent of arrests. It is not a "crisis."
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We WASPY Presbyterians run a higher risk of getting shot during a police raid because we won't raise our hands into the air for fear our friends might see us and think we pray that way.
Police are not targeting black males. My father was a policeman. Do you really think he wanted to go into neighborhoods infested with crime, gangs and drugs to arrest someone? Would you? If there is a problem (and it may be a reason crime is high in these areas), it is that police are not aggressive enough because they fear for their own lives and being persecuted by a leftist media and race-hatred merchants.
Ninety percent of the protestors were not from Ferguson. Many were white college kids burnishing their liberal creds to impress their professors. The Feds would not shoot them because they owe the government at least $90k each in student loans, and they wouldn't let the students off the hook that easily. The imported whites organized protests and the locals looted, just to prove that the races actually can work together.
Let's review the reality of Ferguson and the lingering economic impact of government dependence, looting and crime in such neighborhoods.
We learn from pictures of looting youths that they think they can savage a business for a perceived injustice, no matter the facts. They looted everything they could from the stores except the latest Garth Brooks CD and job applications.
So the good merchants leave a crime-ridden area like Ferguson. The intrepid ones who stay have to charge their local customers more because they are being robbed; it's a cost of doing business. All that is left are pawn shops, liquor stores and plaintiffs' attorney advertisements: the trifecta of blight. As a result, the youth left there only see seedy businesses and nefarious characters. Perhaps this informs their view of business nationwide. With successful role models gone, the cycle perpetuates itself. It is, hands down, bad economics for the city and the kids there.
The liberal education system echoes the victimization narrative, so in school the youths get no economically uplifting, self-reliant templates for their lives. I doubt they've even heard of Horatio Alger or inspiring black businessmen like Bob Johnson or Herman Cain.
For years I coached an inner-city projects basketball team of 15 year-olds. I would take them to movies on weekends and drive them through nice neighborhoods. When they marveled at the homes, I asked them, "What do you think these people do to make the money to live in such homes?" There was a long pause; none had an idea. Then Tavarus said, "I know, they get a rapid refund from the government." Getting money from government is the only way they are conditioned to think.
Aside from being fed the constant line that they are victims and are owed something, Obama gives looter-types even more justification for looting. And for their vote, Democrats are all too willing to let them continue to think they are always victims who should depend on the government.
But Obama did fly back to D.C. from his Martha's Vineyard vacation to lecture us on race. Either he felt it was important, or he forgot his favorite putter.
