{"id":441,"date":"2014-09-09T19:42:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-09T19:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/09\/for-michael-brown-justice-is-not-a-gift-its-a-right.html"},"modified":"2014-09-09T19:42:00","modified_gmt":"2014-09-09T19:42:00","slug":"for-michael-brown-justice-is-not-a-gift-its-a-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2014\/09\/for-michael-brown-justice-is-not-a-gift-its-a-right.html","title":{"rendered":"For Michael Brown, Justice Is Not a Gift. It\u2019s a Right"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">This whole Michael Brown thing,\u201d a local white business owner informed me, \u201cis a case of reverse racism!\u201d The Saint Louis native continued, \u201cThose people over there on the north side kill and shoot each other all the time and nobody says a word. Now that it\u2019s a white cop, it\u2019s suddenly a big deal.\u201d As he brazenly brushed aside the \u201cno free refills\u201d sign at the coffee shop in order to refill the beverage he bought yesterday, he continued without a hint of irony, \u201cAnd I\u2019m glad they released that video of him stealing, they tried to paint that kid as an angel. He wasn\u2019t no angel. He was a thief!\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><br><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">Black and\/or impoverished people steal. White and\/or wealthy folks enjoy customer perks. \u201cThis kid was a criminal,\u201d he maintained, \u201cplain and simple. You can\u2019t expect to steal, assault a store clerk, and then expect to get away with it.\u201d I asked him why, then, Wynona Rider or Lindsay Lohan do not end up fatally shot when they shoplift or engage in familiar, reckless young adult behavior? Or why police officers did not accost the seven privileged 18 and 19-year-olds who recently broke into NBA all-star Ray Allen\u2019s Tahiti Beach home in Coral Gables?\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><br><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">He responded, \u201cLook, I don\u2019t have all the answers okay.\u201d But he did have the parameters by which a just inquiry into the shooting of Michael Brown should occur. He concluded his lunchtime soliloquy by stating, \u201cLook, those people over there just need to work on their own problems before they blame or ask the police for anything and expect any sympathy.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><br><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">Residents of a nearby suburb expressed similar sentiments to a New Republic reporter. Under the condition of anonymity, a group of white residents gathered in a coffee shop chimed in with disputed narratives about the crime, followed by certainties such as \u201cI don\u2019t even know what they\u2019re fighting for.\u201d Another embellished, \u201cThe kid wasn\u2019t really innocent \u2026 he\u2019s got a rap sheet already, so he\u2019s not that innocent.\u201d In reality, Mike Brown does not have a criminal \u201crap sheet.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><br><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">In fact, Mike Brown\u2019s juvenile record is stellar compared to that of white teen idol Justin Bieber. But Brown does have another kind of rap: he is black. African Americans and those living in underserved communities, are expected to somehow pull off the herculean feat of proving themselves fit for justice in the eyes of the wealthy and elite before they can \u201crightfully\u201d petition for a just investigation.\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\"><br><\/span><\/div>\n<div><span style=\"font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif\">Read the rest <a href=\"http:\/\/religionandpolitics.org\/2014\/09\/09\/for-michael-brown-justice-is-not-a-gift-its-a-right\/\" target=\"_blank\" class=\" decorated-link\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This whole Michael Brown thing,\u201d a local white business owner informed me, \u201cis a case of reverse racism!\u201d The Saint Louis native continued, \u201cThose people over there on the north side kill and shoot each other all the time and nobody says a word. Now that it\u2019s a white cop, it\u2019s suddenly a big deal.\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>For Michael Brown, Justice Is Not a Gift. 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