Madison Thames
Staff Writer
As a young “white” woman that most would be consider privileged in our world today, I have never been targeted because of my race or felt threatened by authority. Therefore I don’t know exactly how the people of Ferguson feel.
However, I believe we have come so far since Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech 51 years ago.
There is no doubt that racism and police brutality both exist in our country. There is no evidence yet that either was the case in the shooting of Michael Brown.
Some of the media think they have all the answers figured out. They have shown no interest in just reporting the facts of the story, instead of opinionated information that continues to feed the people reasons to argue and protest.
The coverage on this issue has truly been disappointing. The job of the media is to inform Americans on current events and issues that are happening in our society.
At what point did this job turn to reporting unproven information? Information that clearly will cause protesting and rioting. This type of reporting has only used a tragedy to aggravate already sensitive issues that we are facing.
The differences in news reports on the shooting of Michael Brown are night and day. Some report Brown’s hands were up in the air when he was shot, and others say the shots were fired in a fight for the officer’s weapon.
Both stories have led to controversy and anger in our society. The truth of the matter is the issue is still being investigated.
Protesting in Ferguson has led to arrests, destruction of a convenient store, damage to many local businesses and other surfacing problems in the suburb.
During his time, MLK Jr. challenged the people saying that, “If you will protest courageously, and yet with dignity and Christian love, when the history books are written in future generations, the historians will have to pause and say, ‘There lived a great people-a black people-who injected new meaning and dignity into the veins of civilization.’”
Protesting may not be completely eliminated, but it could be tremendously lowered if the reporting on the issue would stop leading citizens to believe what supposedly may have happened.
Alveda King, the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., shared that “you got to have peace, and then you can go after justice,” on Fox New’s “Hannity” show.
She continued to share that “if my uncle, Martin Luther King Jr., went to Ferguson today, he would be meeting with the spiritual leaders. He would be encouraging the people. He would be motivating the rioters and say ‘you’re better than this, you don’t have to live like this.’ He would want a society that was so much better that Michael never felt like he had to go in the store and steal anything in the first place.”
Why don’t we, as the media, focus on sharing the important news? News that shows a young man’s life was lost and that investigations are being held to get to the bottom of what truly happened.
Why don’t we give the justice system a chance to work before we urge people to take the streets demanding a certain outcome?
If we focus on these things, we have a better chance to strengthen our country and allow us to grow as a society and learn from this tragedy. At this rate we are more focused on inciting violence in the country and on the path to tear the US apart with larger issues of racial discrimination and accusations of police brutality.
I agree with what King stated on Fox News, “I believe we must wait until the whole investigation is done. It’s too early to make decisions on either side, but I believe that we should not rush to just decide that, you know, Michael was just slaughtered and shot down. We have to let the justice take its course.”
Peace before justice. We, as a society, must let the true facts come out before we expect any justice to be given. Instead of additional separation, the focus should be moving forward and fixing the US to where the immediate assumptions we make about people based on their skin color- from both sides of the problem- is ended.