The shooting in Ferguson and the demonstrations that followed seemed to have validated a particular narrative in this country. A young person, normally a male of black and brown skin, comes in contact with the police. Some ‘altercation’ occurs and the officer must use excessive force to subdue the individual. If the young person is lucky, they are bumped, bruised and sent to the hospital. In extreme cases the person is ends up dead. The citizens of the community become outraged, demonstrations are mounted and the police show up in force to ‘protect the citizens.’

When you have a situation like Ferguson, the racial component is quickly focused on. The usual talking heads are brought out to discuss the racial divide in our nation. Stats are brought up to show the racial disparity in our country. Some political factions will insist there is no racial turmoil in this country. A certain network will try to outfox other networks by bringing out their own black commentators who will present information that will implicate ‘those people’ protesting as agitators and will suggest if the dead person had just followed the rules, the incident would never have happened. Other networks will insist it is open season for black people and will paint a picture where black people are harassed everyday by authorities.

Because we live in the Obama era, where everything has to be polarized because we have a black President, politicians react along racial lines if the incident become strong enough in the national spotlight. Personally, I find it insulting that Jay Nixon, Governor of Missouri felt that the Missouri State Highway Patrol, led by Capt. Ron Johnson, would be perfect for the job. I’m sure the fact he was black had nothing to do with his decision. I find it insulting that politicians like Claire McCaskill are now wondering why the government has given away or sold millions of dollars’ worth of military surplus to law enforcement agencies across the country. While national attention has been focused on Ferguson, the police have continued to use questionable strong armed tactics on citizens they are supposed to protect and serve. A mentally challenged man was killed by police in Los Angeles. A local woman died from a gunshot wound when police, answering a mental disturbance call, shot the woman as she held a hammer above her head.

The real issue I see in cases like Ferguson is the attitude of the police to the situation. Even if we are to believe the story floated by the head police officer in Ferguson, which is that Michael Brown had strong armed and stolen cigars from a local store, we do not live in a Judge Dredd society where the police are judge, jury and executioner. A man accused, and understand the word is accused, of selling single cigarettes on the street corner shouldn’t wind up dead. A person accused of stealing cigars shouldn’t wind up dead. A person walking down the street shouldn’t wind up dead. Citizens, tax paying citizens, shouldn’t face armed officers with military style riot gear, weapons and tactical transports. We shouldn’t see images on American streets that could be seen in Gaza, Ukraine or other war torn regions of the world.

Right now, we still look at these shooting situations in the narrative of race. Race is a component of the problem, but only in that a lot of poor people are going to be black or brown. If you look past the zoom shots that the media showed in the first few days of the demonstrations, you would have seen a mixed group of individuals at the demonstrations. The people on the ground mentioned this but the images most of the country saw was of black people up against a heavily militarized police force. Forgive me for putting this in blunt terms, but once the black sheriff arrived (and I’m using that phrasing as a metaphor since I know he is a Captain on the State Highway Patrol) pictures and video images showed a mix of black and white protestors. They were there all the time, but we are told the mood changed when the black guy was put in charge.

A Black face doesn’t change the fundamental issue posed by the Ferguson incident. Police are increasing using military occupation tactics on citizens. A large majority of the population, and for those that need a translation this would be the white population, wants to believe and accept that the tactics are only used on an unappreciative and possibly violent segment of the ‘community’, and for translation this would mean black and brown people. They have bought into the narrative of the unappreciative minorities who only look for handouts and if left to their own devices would destroy this great God fearing nation. They believe that the police must be a militarized force to keep minorities in check. If you live in Arizona, you would see a lot of political ads on radio and television. Most if not all the candidates running for office talk about being tough about border security. They equate bringing more troops to the border as a way of combating crime in the state. How warped in the view about crimes being tied to undocumented persons? There was a recent arrest of a family of five accused to stealing clothes from local department stores. They were Hispanic. Another recent incident was of another group, this time a mother and her son, who were caught after a high speed chase through the city. They were accused of the same thing, stealing items from local department stores and they too were Hispanic. In the numerous articles I read on both cases, there was nothing to indicate the individuals were undocumented persons.

The comment sections of the local news agencies, and there were hundreds of replies from different outlets, showed that the majority of people commenting wanted the accused deported, blamed the crimes on their ‘illegal’ status, and of course pinned the increase in crime to Obama’s lack of leadership on the border. Understand, the articles never indicated the people were undocumented. People saw the Hispanic surnames and assumed they were undocumented. When a local professor, a black woman, was shown being manhandled by police officers, the general perception of the online traffic was she deserved to be treated that way by the police. A few weeks earlier, when a white woman was pushed by law enforcement official during a rowdy downtown Tempe event where alcohol was involved, many of the online comments were critical of the force used by the police. I know it’s not scientific, but I would dare say if you look at social media connected to news articles and see similar incidents with police interaction between white and minority citizens, there will be more cries of police brutality when the subject is white.

I have to emphasis the show of police force has more to do with economics than race. Race is a factor because many of the communities effected by a heavy handed and militarized police force are majority minority communities. If I had to make a prediction, the Ferguson incident will be like any other issue labeled as a racial conflict in this country. People will say lots of words, coverage will continue to focus on race relations and since we will paint this as Blacks vs police many will look at this as an issue that can’t be solved because the focus will be on the difficult issue of race.