Controlling The Narrative

            “Hands Up – Don’t Shoot” said unarmed black teenager Michael Brown before being shot in the back by white police officer Darren Wilson. Or so goes the narrative of Ferguson, and based on the narrative cities have burned, police officers around the country are being “re-trained” and pulled from high crime neighborhoods, we are reminded of the institutional racism which rules our society, and the Black Lives Matter movement grabs the microphone and the attention of the President.

Except of course that it never happened.  A different narrative is that Michael Brown, a thug high on dope knocked over a convenience store and when stopped by Officer Wilson, Brown reached into Wilson’s car, punched him and grabbed for his gun which discharged shooting Brown in the hand.  Brown retreated about 50 yards while Wilson followed him.  Brown turned, ignored Wilson’s orders to get down, and charged at Wilson who shot him dead.  The second narrative is what actually happened, as found by overwhelming evidence before the grand jury, and when Attorney General Holder could not accept that – it was also found by overwhelming evidence in a Federal investigation.  As millions of dollars of investigations and a ruined life of Darren Wilson contradict the narrative, the narrative survives.

“After Ferguson, the police have to…”

In matters of race there is a single narrative in our society, a narrative of victimization and pervasive racism.  Whether the slogan is “Black Lives Matter” or “The Age of Mass Incarceration” the narrative is all-controlling, and questioning its facts or conclusions is itself “racist”.  It is a new McCarthyism leading to the same blacklisting, job purges and social ostracism.   This week Princeton considers redacting Woodrow Wilson from its history as President of the University and later of the United States because of his racist views, and under the controlled public narrative no one can say anything. 

 I have never been black and I have not walked a mile in anyone’s shoes, but I can’t help thinking that the substitution of diatribe for dialogue is a bad thing.  The rhetoric of the 60’s sounds vaguely stale and inauthentic, and I wish the President would stop sounding like a damned fool.   

If there were a dialogue I wouldn’t know what to say.   I suppose the defense against McCarthyism is not to defend Communists, but to uphold the virtue of truth telling.  I suppose I would insist that opposing the narrative need not be racist.   We live in an imperfect world where empathy for the poor is a good thing, and it should not be incompatible with honesty.

These scribbles started almost 10 years ago with a declaration that if everyone knows something to be true it is probably false.  The narrative may be controlled, but it is most assuredly false.