It's Not About Race

              In her article on the CNN website entitled, "The Real Reason Ferguson Has Military Weapons," Kara Dansky condemns the militarization of local police forces and the supposed racism of white police officers toward the black community.  She insists that "the weaponry has changed, but the target is still the same."  Dansky uses examples from the protests in Ferguson, Missouri after the shooting of the black Michael Brown by a white police officer to illustrate her point, stating that in the images on the news one sees "white police officers beating black protesters" and "young black men lying face down in the street with police officers standing over them with assault rifles."  Later on she claims that "54% of people impacted by the paramilitary searches were people of color." 

             While she definitely makes many thought provoking claims throughout her article, I believe that she greatly simplifies and misjudges the situation.  What she fails to address is the fact that these protests in Ferguson were planned and organized well before the trial, and the destruction that they have caused in the community has been devastating.  She does not mention the fact that these protesters, both black and white, broke into stores and businesses, looted their goods, caused destruction right and left, and even shot and killed multiple police officers.  This issue, therefore, is not one of race, but rather one of respect and common decency.  While I do not agree with the militarization of the police force, the police officers were simply trying to control the masses and protect the safety and lives of themselves and the civilians in the area from the barbaric actions of the mobs.  Their actions, though obviously extreme when taken out of context, were justified. 

             Unfortunately, because our society is so concerned with matters of race, a simple case of a police officer being threatened by a criminal and forced to shoot to preserve his life is blown out of proportion because it was done by a white man against a black man.  The issue of police officers taking extreme measures in order to maintain this control is obviously a topic that needs to be addressed, but let us not turn this into a matter of white supremacy.  Rather, let us look at the motivating factors behind these people's actions and address the issues therein.