“Agreed, then: you can call us racist murderers, as long as you keep the donations coming….”
Let us be undiplomaticly clear about what the five St. Louis Rams players did when they came onto the field at the start of a Monday Night Football games with their hands in the air like the fictional, idealized, sanitized, imaginary and politically useful version of Michael Brown—you know: the angelic young college-bound African-American male who did nothing whatsoever to cause the circumstances of his own death.
The players were saying, on national television, with millions of people watching, that Officer Darren Wilson executed Mike Brown in cold blood; that the St. Louis police do such things, want to do such things, and will do such things, because they routinely target young black men for harm; and that police generally, around the nation, are virulent racists. That’s what the gesture meant, and that is what it was devised to convey.
The players have emphatically refused to apologize for their display, and though it is completely inappropriate, embarrassing and irresponsible for a professional athlete to engage in such political protests, regardless of merit, on the playing field, the team and the National Football League have declined to discipline them, thus tacitly approving their conduct. (I know the real reason they haven’t acted, and so do you: the league and the team are afraid to wade into more controversy than it already has, thanks to the NFL’s wife-punching, child-beating stars and its willingness to maim its own players. The fact that we understand their actions, or lack of any, doesn’t excuse or justify them.)
Ah, but it’s all right now! Last night, the Rams made an on-field donation to The Backstoppers, a charity serving the families of fallen first responders, prior to the team’s Thursday night game against the Arizona Cardinals, and we all know money solves everything.
It does not, however, though much in our culture suggests otherwise. The contribution essentially asks police to allow themselves to be called racist killers for a price. If they accept the money, then the St. Louis police and their supporters have forfeited their integrity for some greenbacks, and agreed that no calumny is too terrible if the bribe is rich enough. Yes, that’s certainly the way to build trust in police character and values in the black community, or any community.
As comes as scant surprise for a profession that apparently is suffering from ethics dementia—like the NFL, ironically—the president of the St. Louis County Police Association, Gabe Crocker, chose to embrace the gift while simultaneous giving lip service to not accepting the cynical false apology it was designed be. He called it a “good first step”—Translation: “More money will be a good second step—we have no pride!”-–and said, solemnly and self-contradictorily:
“The players’ actions had a profoundly negative impact on public safety personnel and their supporters throughout the community. I still would not expect many public safety folks to be lining up for tickets.”
Pathetic: “The players’ actions were wrong and outrageous, but we’ll accept checks in lieu of any indication that they recognize this, or that they won’t do the same thing again. But watch out: our officers won’t be buying any of your over-priced, sold-out tickets that they weren’t going to buy anyway!”
The team’s donation was ethically incoherent, a transparent public relations move that meant nothing more than “Here: take this in exchange for our players calling you killers.” The willingness of the police charity to accept it was equally unethical, a classic example of “The Saint’s Excuse,” Ends Justify The Means Dept.: “OK, we’ll let you call living police racist killers as long as we get some more money to help the families of dead racist killers.”
The Backstoppers, if the organization had any integrity, should have publicly rejected the gift.
The “hands up” gesture is a false accusation of murder wherever it is displayed and whoever displays it. It will stop when it is condemned in unequivocal terms, as it should be by any fair citizen and organization, regardless of race or political affiliation.
Ethics Alarms 
No different than my perennial target Dan Savage saying he’d yank the google-bombing site he put up to smear Rick Santorum if Rick made a hefty pro-SSM donation, with interest from the day of the pronunciation. Selling out at best, extortion at the worst.
No, this is worse. That was “I’ll take down my smear if you give money.” This was “never mind, you can smear anyone you like as long as you give money to the families of who your smearing.”
Agreed, a shade worse, but only in the way Moe was a slightly smarter Stooge than the rest.
Oh, come on…Mo was a LOT smarter than the rest.
Actually in real life he was, it was due to his investment of part of their earnings that the surviving Stooges had comfortable retirements. On stage, though, here, hit this! SMACK! Owww…. Moe!
“The “hands up” gesture is a false accusation of murder wherever it is displayed and whoever displays it.”
It is almost entirely no such thing. Your saying that it is doesn’t make it so.
Look around you. The hands-up gesture, regardless of the facts of the particular incident that inspired it, has become, and IS, a cultural statement of political concern. That’s what it IS.
And in that, it is no different from almost any iconic image from our national past. Rosa Parks was a contrived victim, carefully chosen to be palatable to white middle class sensibilities, and far from the first person to be denied a seat on a bus, or to protest it. The iconic flag raising on Iwo Jima was staged. Matthew Brady used to change the positions of bodies on the battlefield to create powerfully visual statements. The words “Play it again, Sam,” were never actually uttered in the movie Casablanca. The “one percent” is not precisely the number of greatest inequality in society. Jesus was probably not caucasian-white. And centerfold playmates have been airbrushed since Hef first took up magazine publishing.
An image, a phrase, a story, all cease to become solely associated with a particular inspiring event once the populace takes it over – hijacks it, if you prefer – and appropriates it for a broader purpose.
That’s all that’s happened here. The general tone of your commentaries, it seems to me, are to resist the general patterns in society, and to focus relentlessly on the particular incidents, and to view them as much as possible as independent events. Seems to me that helps bring some ethical issues into sharper focus, but it obscures others.
For example, your claim that militarization of the police force has no effect on the perceptions of police. I accept that may true for you – I have absolutely no way of arguing against your self-perceptions – but I find it non-credible, astonishing really, that you could make that statement as a generalization. There is a such thing as society; there is a such thing as general consciousness, memes, social patterns. The world we live in does have an effect on each of us.
At this point there is very little connection between the hands-up gesture and the particulars of Michael Brown’s death. It’s quite possible that many people who use the gesture might not even make the link, much less remember Brown’s name. That’s not what it means for them, any more than someone flashing the V-sign explicitly connects it with WWII or Winston Churchill.
So for you to assert that the gesture “is a false accusation of murder” is to deny the social reality in front of your face. It “IS” a whole lot more than that.
When will you write about the ethics of social phenomena, laws, and customs, in addition to the ethics of individual actions?
“Look around you. The hands-up gesture, regardless of the facts of the particular incident that inspired it, has become, and IS, a “…cultural statement of political concern. That’s what it IS.”
!!!!
Everybody does it, pure and simple.
And “the End Justifies the means.”
And “It’s for a good cause”
And “There are worse things.”
I’m sure you nicked some others too.
The Big Lie—and that’s just what this is, having morphed from a dishonest, racist, unfair and irresponsible assumption— is still a lie, and a protest that uses a lie as its foundation deserves condemnation not respect. You are rationalizing. Sorry, Charles, there is no other word for it.
Meanwhile:
“your claim that militarization of the police force has no effect on the perceptions of police.”
That’s not what I said; indeed, I wrote the opposite. What I said was that militarization does not make a police force untrustworthy and racist, and it doesn’t.
There is a such thing as society; there is a such thing as general consciousness, memes, social patterns. The world we live in does have an effect on each of us.
And that means I have to accept such memes as reasonable, fair, and right? This is all “everybody does it”? ‘everybody thinks this way”, Charles. Why am I, or anyone, obligated to accept a flawed perception and unethical positions?
At this point there is very little connection between the hands-up gesture and the particulars of Michael Brown’s death.
Baloney!!!! Polls show 88% of blacks thing Brown was mudered, and every time that gesture is used, that ignorant, biased, fact-immune perception is confirmed. I am stunned. You are really arguing that by mass use, a false symbol somehow sheds it’s unethical features? Wowsers.
It’s quite possible that many people who use the gesture might not even make the link, much less remember Brown’s name.
And such people should shut the hell up! They are irresponsible to participate in a debate that they don’t comprehend or won’t take the effort to be informed about. You don’t get to have an opinion when you have no basis for one. An ethical person recognizes what they don’t know.
That’s not what it means for them, any more than someone flashing the V-sign explicitly connects it with WWII or Winston Churchill.
And, I suppose, someone who flashes a middle finger to a judge is similarly beyond consequences or harsh judgment, in your view, if he has decided it means “I like your ceiling.” Come on.
“So for you to assert that the gesture “is a false accusation of murder” is to deny the social reality in front of your face. It “IS” a whole lot more than that.”
And what it is is an assertion that Wilson should have been indicted for murder with inadequate, because not to do so proves that “black lives don’t count.” In other words, “Crap.”
When will you write about the ethics of social phenomena, laws, and customs, in addition to the ethics of individual actions?
I do so all the time. I am here: this is a flagrantly unethical social phenomenon, and you (and others) are rationalization it.
Jsck, I’ve got to run to catch a plane, but can’t let this stand. I absolutely deny all the imputations that attribute to me. For eample:
I am NOT claiming tha you have to accept memes as fair and right – just that you have to stop denying their esxistence.
I am NOT claiming that by mass use a symbol sheds ethica or unethical features – simply that it takes on its own reality, which you continue to deny.
I am NOT claiming that a raised middle finger places someone beyond consequences.
I’m claiming none of those things, and you know me well enough to know I’ve never said, nor would I say, such things.
What I AM claiming is your continued insistence on viewing things like global demonstrations solely through the lens of facts-on-the-ground of the specific genesis, without regard to the social conditions, leads to misleading and incomplete moral anlaysis.
What you’re doing is no different than blaming WWI on a Serbian nateionalist who pulled the trigger on the Archduke. That did not happen in a vaccuum. Neither did Michael Brown. And your refusal to examine the context, indeed to bully people into defining ethics SOLELY in terms of whether or not an individuals’s hands were up or down trivializes the larger debate.
Sorry, gotta run – will check back later.
Thanks, Charles, for putting into words what I have been thinking: that the “hands up” gesture has taken on more than just the facts of the Michael Brown killing. I could not say it nearly so well.
Something my friends have brought up in the last few days is the discomfort of being white and using the gesture in peaceful protest. They feel like they are coopting a symbol that they have no right to. I would like to hear your thoughts about this.
Ugh. If they want to join in a lie, the Constitution says they have every right. Still a lie. The argument Charles is making is pure ratioanalization, and nothing better.
I understand your friends’ reluctance; it’s related to, though not the same as, white people using the “n” word (tho many young white kids use it, making older white people even more uncomfortable).
Both are about the extent to which a symbol is “owned” by a group. Should a Christian person wear a yarmulke if invited to a Bar Mitzvah? Should a Baptist take communion if visiting a Catholic Church? Should a modern day German talk about pride in the Homeland? Should a 20-year old male participate in a Facebook chat about women’s’ menstrual issues?
It’s tempting to label these ethical issues, and they’re I think sometimes felt that way, but it may be more right to see them as cases of social propriety, etiquette and personal respect.
I’d be interested in hearing Jack’s take on the boundary between them, I suspect he’s thought about that more than I have?
I am NOT claiming that you have to accept memes as fair and right – just that you have to stop denying their existence.
Uh, Charles: the whole post was about the false meme’s existance.
I am NOT claiming that by mass use a symbol sheds ethical or unethical features – simply that it takes on its own reality, which you continue to deny.
This is pretty close to New Age gibberish. The reality is that nobody was shot while raising his hands in abject surrender. The reality is that the “meme” asserts otherwise. The reality is that MOST OF THOSE USING THE MEME BELIEVE OTHERWISE!
I am NOT claiming that a raised middle finger places someone beyond consequences.
Good! Then neither does using raised hands when doing so accuses an innocent man and a whole police force and law enforcement of murder.
I’m claiming none of those things, and you know me well enough to know I’ve never said, nor would I say, such things.
Then I really don’t know what you are saying, Charles. Conduct is fair, responsible, reasonable and truthful, or it isn’t. This isn’t.
What I AM claiming is your continued insistence on viewing things like global demonstrations solely through the lens of facts-on-the-ground of the specific genesis, without regard to the social conditions, leads to misleading and incomplete moral analysis.
I have no reason or obligation to dignify a protest based on a lie with more respoect until it ditches the lie. Find another meme. This is hoodies all over again. Picking unrelated, inappropriate events and using them as rallying points in rank defiance of facts is wrong, and I’m one of the few saying so. I’ll move on when I hear a “hands up” perpetrator say “Mike Brown got justice, and we accept that Darren Wilson was not acting on racial animus.” Have you heard that?
“What you’re doing is no different than blaming WWI on a Serbian nateionalist who pulled the trigger on the Archduke.”
Silly analogy of the day.
“Neither did Michael Brown. And your refusal to examine the context, indeed to bully people into defining ethics SOLELY in terms of whether or not an individuals’s hands were up or down trivializes the larger debate.”
Baloney. I’m saying they are two different debates, and they are. You have no case.
” At this point there is very little connection between the hands-up gesture and the particulars of Michael Brown’s death”
In ST. Louis? I have to disagree. Right now, that’s all that gesture means there, there’s little chance that there was an alternative meaning for it.
“particulars of Michael Browns death” is different from “What the people on the street think” The forensic evidence does not support Michael Brown being shot with his hands up, no amount of wishful thinking on behalf of the people who make this gesture will change that. That’s why the people who are making that gesture are either ignorant or purposefully dishonest. The connection is a lie.
I feel like I’m missing some subtlety in Charles’s argument, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is. Let’s say instead of “hands up!” the symbol emblazoned on T-shirts and posters was Wilson’s face, with words, “Racist…Murderer” under it. Would Charles say the same thing…that it’s just a meme that has transcended the facts, and should be respected and given weight no matter what damage it does to Wilson, race relations or historical perspective?
I would absolutely not say that – it’s precisely NOT the same thing.
Using Wilson’s name and face is a particular person, with regard to a particular case. The hands-up theme is being used on Staten Island and at Penn State, so it’s patently obviously specifically NOT about Wilson, but about a general issue instead.
That’s what it IS being used as – not, as you incorrectly stated, as a false accusation or murder by anyone anywhere who makes the gesture.
It started out that way, sure. But that train left the station long ago. It is just factually no longer true that anyone using the gesture is making a specific accusation of murder: it’s become a generic symbol of protest about the inequality of justice in America.
Which, I note, STILL no one is talking about here.
Which, in a blog about ethics, strikes me as unfortunate.
“The hands-up theme is being used on Staten Island and at Penn State, so it’s patently obviously specifically NOT about Wilson, but about a general issue instead.”
We’re going to disagree on this. I don’t see how that is obvious. This was a national story, I don’t care if the gesture is being done in Timbuktu, it’s obviously a reference to Michael Brown, and the facts of the case don’t support the narrative being pushed. It’s dishonest. It’s the definition of race baiting. Look at the message it sends to people other than it’s target audience: “Whenever a white person, and especially a white cop kills a black person, it’s brutality, facts be damned!” And that’s the point I don’t think you get, Charles. Facts be damned. Why the fuck are we still talking about Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, where the narratives have been so utterly blown full of holes it isn’t even funny? Why aren’t we talking about Eric Garner or John Crawford III? Why does the anti-police, anti-white pick such shitty cases to base their platforms on?
All I can think of is that they want bad cases. They want dissention. They want to make a mess of it all. They want to polarize and divide, because it sells more rags, or gets better ratings, or keep the donations coming, or keep them in a job. And people like you, for reasons that utterly escape me, just bite and tug. Hook line and sinker. The size of your blinders are insane! Take this for example:
“It is just factually no longer true that anyone using the gesture is making a specific accusation of murder: it’s become a generic symbol of protest about the inequality of justice in America. ”
And then Google “hands up, don’t shoot.”
First link past amazon wanting to sell me hands up don’t shoot?
http://www.handsupunited.org/
There is more work in the fight for #JusticeForMikeBrown. You can help.
Join the growing movement against the systematic targeting of
black and brown communities across the country.
Support the Movement.
End Police Brutality.
Get Justice for Mike Brown.
“It is just factually no longer true that anyone using the gesture is making a specific accusation of murder:”
Support the Movement.
End Police Brutality.
Get Justice for Mike Brown.
“no longer true that anyone using the gesture is making a specific accusation of murder”
Get Justice for Mike Brown.
Get a grip.
Without the Wilson reference, the gesture is patently meaningless. Whose hands were up, if not Brown’s? This argument is so desperate I can’t believe its being made seriously. The gesture derives its “meaning” from a lie, thus it refers to a lie, thus it is an endorsement of that lie, thus it is a lie itself.
Again, the obsession with the particulars. The gesture has gone way way beyond St. Louis.
For example, see this headline, from the President of Penn State”
http://www.mcall.com/news/nationworld/pennsylvania/barron-hands-up-gesture-not-about-police-but-about-supporting-students-1210-20141210-story.html
“Again, the obsession with the particulars” Like… Don’t sweat the little things. Like facts. The facts are inconvenient.
I expected little better from the current NFL leadership, as I suspect many others did. What rankles me much more is that the St. Louis Police Association grabbed at the bribe. How can you run a union that is supposedly dedicated to professionalism and the safety of its members by doing such a thing? If the membership has any scruples superior to those of Mr. Crocker, they’ll rise up and repudiate his actions. If not, they’ll only solidify the idea that there are no good guys on the streets of St. Louis County except for a few armed citizens and National Guardsmen.
You’ve no doubt heard of “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Or, “the canary in the coal mine.” Or “the tip of the iceberg.” Or “trigger points.” Or ” tipping points.”
These are all common manifestTions of the fact that some particulars get generalized. Myths may havethere Genesis in some very particular event, but they transcended and become much larger.
The hands up gesture is being used in Hong Kong, probably not directly because of Ferguson but because the gesture is universal.
You are continually refusing to discuss the larger social issues, preferring to focus on the particulars.
The reason 80% of black people are enraged is because they see this as a manifestation of a larger pattern. You’re not talking about that pattern. Instead, you are consistently referring ethical issues back to the case of the particular. And that’s what I’m trying to call into question. It’s the forest for the trees issue, the issue of whether the causes of WWI went beyond an Austrian Archduke’s assassination.
The grand jury in Ferguson has spoken. That’s the law. But it doesn’t mean all’so right with the law, not by a long shot. Remember, slavery used to be the law of the land too.
Bullshit. Absolute Bollocks.
“You are continually refusing to discuss the larger social issues, preferring to focus on the particulars.”
Talk about hypocrisy. Large American cities are battlegrounds where black people are killing themselves in the thousands annually, more than 90% of violence is perpetrated within one’s own ethnic group, and more black babies are aborted than born every year in New York, year over year. But Black lives matter! And WE’RE missing the point!
“The reason 80% of black people are enraged is because they see this as a manifestation of a larger pattern. You’re not talking about that pattern. ”
What ‘pattern’? “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” is based on a lie. And it’s not the first time that witness testimony, on either side, was found to be complexly false. That’s a pattern. If you want to convince me that “Hands Up, Don’t Shoot” is a reference to a pattern of police brutality independent from Ferguson and the lie those witnesses told, I challenge you to find references to it that don’t also include Ferguson. You KNOW better. That isn’t how it’s being put out there. That’s the pleasant lie you tell yourself to justify your position.
“The grand jury in Ferguson has spoken. That’s the law.”
Uh… No. I finally broke down and read up on grand juries. There is no double jeopardy in grand jury hearings, because there wasn’t a trial, and therefore no jeopardy. If the prosecutor thought there was a case, he could either call a new grand jury, or just press charges without a grand jury. The fact of the matter is that prosecutors don’t like losses on their record, and there just isn’t enough evidence to go on.
A point of order: irrelevance, proceeding to argument chaos:
charlesgreen says: “The general tone of your commentaries, it seems to me, are to resist the general patterns in society, and to focus relentlessly on the particular incidents, and to view them as much as possible as independent events. Seems to me THAT HELPS BRING SOME ETHICAL ISSUES INTO SHARPER FOCUS [upper case mine], but it obscures others.”
No, The personal tone and structure of the commentaries [I have here deleted my “it seems to me”] bring each issue into focus. Period. There is no other way to deal with them unless you want a scholarly historical, sociopolitical tome on each. In which case each “particular incident” and “independent event” would have to have a volume of its very own, and each chapter its own thesis, variable and arguable in themselves. Which no one would read anyway since explaining the “general patterns in society” would have long since obscured any single ethical issue as well as its timeliness.
I understand what Charles is saying; I had to think this kind of thing through when I first started reading Ethics Alarms, and it still drives me crazy sometimes/often because I have to take time out to search for background information or translation for myself — for example, I don’t have a tv and I do not speak Lawyer. That is my handicap and I Iive with it. I usually take a deep breath and at least consider setting the oven timer before opening the blog.
In the case of the historical, national and social background of the civil (and police) actions going on now, I am well versed in it and have been on several recent occasions, whether due to friendship, curiosity, vocation or accident of locale, immersed in it.
Hands-up (peace sign, raised fist, middle finger, lying down on the railroad tracks, thumb-to-nose): the luckiest stroke, perhaps the most effective symbolic gesture ever to come to the attention of a group that can use it. Iconic AND ironic; what more could a dissenter ask for! Universal. Eminently marketable. Even a child can do it. Has much wider applications. It’s not going away – probably not ever.
The common name of Brown is the second easiest connection. So far, I haven’t run into anyone who hasn’t made it. But the connection is now stretched — and it seems impromptu and natural to do so at this point even if it was, as Jack asserts “devised to convey” his oft-enumerated falsities in all the cases involved — stretched to cover all allegations of police brutality either against themselves or, a la NFL self-appointed spokesmodels or other flag-bearers, on behalf of the rest of the planet.
In saying the display of hands-up is “a false accusation of murder wherever it is displayed and whoever displays it” Jack’s ethical arguments are backed by unassailable facts and powerful logical assumptions. That is apart from the point that the truths are becoming every minute more unacceptable to and more estranged from popular belief. {The examples of Rosa Parks, the Iwo Jima flag, and so on, given by Mr. Green were not based on false accusations or occurrences, by the way, just different expediencies – deplorable perhaps, but not comparable in any way). It’s the ethics alarm that is being overwhelmed by the interpretation of “hands-up” in the arms of the public, its media and private agendas (16+ google-pages of history of political gestures in sports??), not the other way round.
Excuse me. I think the oven timer went off awhile ago.
Before you get all wired up (well I guess it’s too late for that), notice that what you (and Jack, I think) are calling an ethical argument was NOT made in ethical terms. Jack made a factual, empirical statement: that the hands-up display “is a false accusation of murder wherever it is displayed and whoever displays it.”
I said, and say, that is not an ethical statement: that is a statement of fact, and it’s wrong on the face of it.
Here is more evidence: an entire article, titled “11 Photos of Fast Food Workers Across the Country Standing with Eric Garner.” Which is precisely what it then proceeds to deliver.
http://mic.com/articles/105758/11-photos-of-fast-food-workers-across-the-country-standing-with-eric-garner
You’ll notice demonstration after demonstration with people using the hands-up gesture to refer to all sorts of things which are NOT Michael Brown and Officer Wilson and Ferguson. It is being used to refer to police tactics in general, to fast food strikes, to the Staten Island case in particular, and to general dissatisfaction with the state of inequality.
As the article says, “They expressed solidarity with national cries for criminal justice reform by holding their hands above their head, a gesture which, along with “hands up, don’t shoot,” has become a symbol of solidarity.” Not, you’ll note, an accusation of murder.
If this doesn’t strike you as proof of the falsity of Jack’s original statement, then I suggest you ask Bill Clinton what the meaning of the word “is” is.
If you want to make an ethical, or rhetorical, or political statement, by all means do so. But don’t flout the rules of logic and language by trying to pretend that a statement “IS” something when it is patently something else.
Charles, you are getting so far off the track that you are elevating. You need to address my questions, and you do not, or have not so far:
1.If “hands up’ does not refer to Mike Brown, who and what does it refer to? Where did it come from, if not from proven false statements from Brown’s friend and partner in crime, whose words were taken as credible by the media and protesters?
2. If it is not supposed to assert that Mike Brown was shot down in cold blood, rather than shot in self defense as preponderance of the evidence, why are protesters calling for “justice for Mike Brown”?
3. If it is not a lie used to deceive, why do just under 90% of African Americans believe that Officer Lewis should be tried for murder?
4. Isn’t it obvious that if the gesture is one of “solidarity,” it is solidarity with the continuing to maintain the lie that Brown was a victim of racism and police brutality?
5. How is your argument, Charles, any different from “the ends justify the means” in its most unethical form? Saying that I am ignoring the larger issues when I focus on the essential dishonesty of the gesture, isn’t that what you are saying? That it is worth perpetuating a lie (and an injustice against a white police officer who has already been victimized) to draw attention to legitimate racial problems in law enforcement? Sacrifice truth and an innocent man and continue to seed distrust based on a falsehood becuaes the image is useful in driving up passion?
6. If 88% of blacks believe that Mike Brown was executed with his hands up, how can you possibly argue that using that gesture doesn’t reinforce the believe that Wilson is a murderer?
Jack, my “argument” is not an argument at all – you are the only claiming there’s an “argument” here. I’m making a very simple observation – that a gesture has become a symbol, and has left behind the original referent point.
Of course the “hands up” gesture originally referred to Mike Brown – there’s no argument there. But it’s equally obvious that it has transcended that origin and become a symbol for a whole lot of other stuff. It’s gained the status of a handshake, a peace sign, something else only tangentially related. The fact that you may not like it doesn’t mean it’s not true.
This is not an obscure point: your whole coverage of the phenomena of black victims of police shooting has been to relentlessly focus on the detailed particulars of the case at hand, case by case. That’s noble work, and it has its place, but it doesn’t entitle you to restate reality. The reality – NOW – is that the hands-up gesture is NOT about a particular murder, it is about a much larger social issue.
And, for the nth time, I renew my question – when are you going to write about that larger question? Take a look at the cover story on the current Economist magazine, hardly a bastion of left-wing thinking. You’ll find it’s all about the issue of excessive police violence in America. That’s what the hands-up gesture has become about, in part, and it goes well beyond what happened in Ferguson.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21636033-united-states-needs-overhaul-its-law-enforcement-system-americas-police-trial
I suggest that is an ethical issue, and a major one. Certainly the Economist thinks so. Where is Ethics Alarms on that broader social ethical issue?
1. I’m working on said piece. However, the issue is complicated, much as the protesters (and apparently, you) are determined to over-simplify it as “police racism.”
2. Over at Mediaite, Joe Concha had this to say about a CNN panel raising its hands. Sound familiar?
“As for the hands exhibition itself, the opinion here (and, yes, this is an opinion column) is that it basically was misleading. It can be argued that the protests yesterday were more the result of the Eric Garner grand jury decision than the one not to indict Darren Wilson. As noted in this space before, the Garner case brought a near-consensus (with exceptions since there always are) across the country and especially in the normally-polarized cable news world: Most agreed the decision was wrong, myself included. Many saw the video (and more importantly, heard the audio) of the Garner arrest and felt the case should have at least gone to trial.
The Brown non-indictment was a completely different story — with the country much more divided on that outcome — because (according to the evidence) of Brown being the aggressor with the arresting officer by punching him and going for his gun. Again, go re-argue the outcome in the comments section–the point is that Brown and Garner are two very different cases that just happened to have grand jury decisions within nine days of each other, sparking what we witnessed on the streets of Manhattan and D.C. yesterday. But by The Four holding their hands up yesterday following a discussion around the protests, it blurred the lines between the two cases, almost implying Ferguson and Staten Island are somehow connected.
Following some interesting reactions to the display, Hoover later responded:
And that’s all well and good, but was the Brown case not about equal justice? It wasn’t like an all-white grand jury decided not to indict (three African-Americans were on it), and more than a few black witnesses came forward supporting Officer Wilson’s side of the story. And it’s not like anyone (objective) is disputing Brown struck Wilson or went for his gun. In fact, most highly-regrarded legal scholars say the grand jury in Ferguson couldn’t be any more fair.
Hoover’s argument more applies to Garner; not so much to Brown. But if you were watching The Four yesterday, one could only conclude that Brown and Garner were incidents that mirrored each other.”
one could only conclude that Brown and Garner were incidents that mirrored each other.
one could only conclude that Brown and Garner were incidents that mirrored each other.
one could only conclude that Brown and Garner were incidents that mirrored each other.
one could only conclude that Brown and Garner were incidents that mirrored each other.
Got that? And that’s because of the lie…”hands up.”
Jack, I saw the same piece, interesting.
I’d suggest that the original CNN broadcast – where the whole panel raised their hands – was seen by, what, 100,000 people? And the Mediate critique by what, 5,000?
So which one merits the description as the more reflective of reality? In my book, 100,000 is a lot bigger than 5,000. You may have better numbers for those, but I’m sure the relative ranking goes with the all-hands-raised crowd.
That’s what IS out there.
And about 17 adults, two dogs, a boy scout troop, a philosophy class and a few of my relatives read Ethics Alarms. You’re killing me here.
“You’ll notice demonstration after demonstration with people using the hands-up gesture to refer to all sorts of things which are NOT Michael Brown and Officer Wilson and Ferguson.”
And if you actually read your link, you’d notice that isn’t true. The first paragraph includes this snippet:
“Riding the wave of rage that has emerged from the recent non-indictments of two police officers involved in the death of unarmed black men, the fast-food workers kicked off their actions with moments of silence for victims Eric Garner and Michael Brown.”
At least this articles doesn’t refer to the two unarmed black men as being murdered, as so many still tend to do.
You just haven’t addressed the fact that people generally tie “Hands up, Don’t Shoot” to Michael Brown. You don’t address that 90% of African Americans believe that Michael Brown was executed with his hands up. I think that you have this idea, where YOU know that he wasn’t executed like that, but you see all these people around you milling around with an idea that you find useful, so you’re attempting to understand their opinions from a position that 1. allows you to believe the people also identifying with you aren’t raving idiots, and 2. isn’t as obviously based on a lie. I think that you’re suffering from dissonance drag, and you need to get over it.