When I tried to engage a friend in a conversation about the death of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old who was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, my friend wearily waved his hand for me to stop.
?Can?t do it,? he said politely. ?It happens so often I?m inured to the pain.? If I think too long about it I might just ?? His voice trailed off.
My friend is a black man. He is raising a black man. His response is one of three that tended to follow Saturday?s tragic news. You can either protect yourself by neutralizing your rage, as he did.? You can defend your community and your principles by protesting. Or you can look away entirely, inured to the sense that Brown?s death is a sad but inevitable casualty of policing in poor black neighborhoods.
Read More At Reuters.
