I don’t think some of my conservative friends get it. Oh, does that surprise you, that I have conservative friends? Well I think that’s part of the problem people have right now. Actually, when I say right now I mean what we have had for a long time, it has just been magnified with recent events in Ferguson. First of all, yes, I have conservative friends. I have broken bread with them, have been there when other friends have shunned them for their views and, considering my own parental conservative background, actually understand how hard it is to try to keep a conservative view when it seems ‘the world’ is against your core beliefs.

Where I take issue with my conservative friends, and believe me I have issue with my stuck in the mud progressive friends, is the unwillingness to take a hard look at the other side’s POV. Believe me, I get where there are crazies on either side, where someone who supposedly represents a view I might believe in says something stupid. The thing that must be done is to look past the gotcha moment or the purposely inflammatory moment and really try to see where the other side is coming from. Yes, there will be times when the other side is spewing crap, but there might be times where you can understand where the other side is coming from and maybe there is a way to clarify a stance.

I have seen a number of conservative friends who have questioned things in the Ferguson situation. They are so pro-police they are willing to overlook information that had it been their family member, they would have questions about the police action on the issue. Understand, I’m not saying there is some great conspiracy afoot, but just from a non-political, non-racial, very non-controversial set of issues, I have seen people vigorously defend questionable decisions. Sometimes you have to walk away, take away the feeling of wanting to ‘one up’ someone and look at the humanity of a situation. Sure you might have people who want to bait with the trope of a tally of events, but put that aside and think about the dignity and the humanity of the situation.

A police officer who shoots a person six times has to come under some strict questions as to the justification of the shooting. If a person stole cigars from a local establishment without a gun, you have to question why that person, and if we are to believe the police the officer didn’t know the person was a possible suspect (and even that might be in question) shot someone six time. Further, why was this information, the amount of shots and where those shots were on the person, not released? Unfortunately, you have to think about the race of the person in the shooting because we as a society think on racial terms. Do I think a lot of my conservative friends think in those terms? Not really, because frankly I consider them friends. They know me and I’m sure I would be the exception to the rule. But thinking of me as an exception kind of prove the point of predisposition? I could easily think they are part of the non-intellectual Fox News Kool-Aid drinkers I see in the press, but I have known these folks for years. They have treated me with kindness and as a human being even though they may see others with my same skin tone and automatically put them in a right wing paranoia file.

I’m not a saint. I can initially pre-judge people just as much as my hardcore conservative and progressive friends. What I try to do is work past that. I try not to prejudge people and I have found more often than not if I take the time to listen, I might not agree with their stance completely I can at least understand where they are coming from. It still might be a messed up conclusion, but by understanding the journey I might find avenues where they took a wrong path to get to their conclusion.

The Ferguson Incident, as well as the Trayvon Martin case and many others that have occurred in the past few years, make people take the bait on the basic, knee jerk presumptions of the case. There must have been something wrong with the dead subject to cause the police officer of citizen to react so violently. Minorities try to explain they are automatically thought of as suspects. Some white observers adhere to the notion that the police are mostly correct and if they shoot it is because the suspect did something wrong. Here’s the thing, I’m sure you can find an incident where a white suspect was killed by the police, and by doing so you have to search a lot for that. A Black or Hispanic subject killed by an officer can take no effort to find. Before Ferguson, you had the woman in LA who was beaten by an officer, you had the guy in New York put in a choke hold and killed. After the killing in Ferguson you had another officer involved shooting in LA and, not on the national radar, there was a woman shot in Phoenix who came at the police with a hammer. Her mother called on a mental welfare check by the police and when met with the hammer they killed her.

People rightfully ask how is it that people at the Bundy ranch, with weapons trained on police officials, weren’t met with tear gas, riot gear and shots. They rightfully ask why open carry gun people can walk through stores without any police harassment yet a black man who picks up a BB gun in a Wal-Mart store is considered such a threat he is shot dead. I’m a 50 year old man, right now with a gray goatee because I’m growing it out for a role, yet as I walk to and from my home I get looks from people as if I’m going to start trouble. You might want to say I’m being paranoid, but I had the same feeling in San Diego when the acquittal occurred after the Rodney King assault verdict.

I shouldn’t have to live in fear that I might be accosted or shot because someone assumes I’m a threat. I don’t have time to make friends with every person I see walking down the street. I shouldn’t have to think about if the clothes I wear will be a considered a threat to other people. I’m an American. My father served in the Navy for 20 years. My mother worked hard for a city school system for 25 years. In my 50 years of living I have very been arrested, charged or been a suspect in any crime. Why, at 50 years old, do I have to fear that someone might assume I’m a suspect because of the color of my skin?