MIKE BROWN IS NO ROSA PARKS

Of course black lives matter.

But the facts matter too. The fact is that Michael Brown was not killed for stealing a pack of
cigarillos. He assaulted a police officer, fought for the officers weapon, retreated before
aggressively running back toward the officer, and ignored repeated orders to desist. Only then
with the officer fearing for his own life was deadly force employed. That was a grand jurys
finding after deliberating for three months and assaying all available evidence. Michael Brown
was not murdered. He was killed in an act of self-defense. As the President has said, we live in a
country governed by law, and this call was the grand jury's to make. Any public argument that
begins with the contrary premisethat postulates that Brown was victimized by an oppressive
political order which views people of color with contemptdoes not deserve to, and will not, be
taken seriously by a majority of our fellow citizens. No matter how well that argument fits with
somebodys historical narrative about the protracted struggle of the descendants of slaves for
equal citizenship in this country, it will not and should not compel the public.
I object to using Browns death as the occasion to mount a movement on behalf of racial justice
precisely because his death was not a racial injustice. There are many injustices in this society,
racial and otherwise. They should be addressed. I have spent a good deal of my time as a social
scientist addressing them. I have argued at length in other settings that the war on drugs is a
wrongheaded policy that perpetuates racial injustice; that stop-and-frisk policing unfairly
burdens many black citizens and should be curtailed; that concentrated poverty, and the social
exclusion that results from it, unduly impair the quality of citizenship of poor folk in America;
and that this is particularly the case among people of color. I have conjectured that the
abomination of mass incarceration as our primary societal response to antisocial behavior at the
economic margins surely reflects the values of policymakersspecifically, their devaluation of
the mainly young, nonwhite men suffering the most from this coercive domination. I have
speculated that if those in power cared more about the lives of those consigned to misery by the
butt-end of our criminal justice system, then the policies undergirding mass incarceration would
surely have been abandoned by now. I have written and said all of this, often.
These are matters to which any progressive movement for equality and democracy should attend.
But none of these concerns has much to do with the tragedy that befell Brown. He did not die
because of zero tolerance policing, or because of the war on drugs, or because of a militarized
police force. He died because he unwisely chose to place an armed police officer in justifiable
fear for his life. His case has virtually nothing in common with those of Eric Garner or Tamir
Riceexcept that each of these cases involves black males dying at the hands of white police
officers who, so far, have avoided being charged with crimes. This similarity does not, in my
mind, constitute sufficient basis for using these disparate cases to construct a general problem of

racial oppression. Indeed, imputing a generalized racial motive in these varied cases is itself a
dubious exercise in racial stereotyping of the (white) officers involved.
I am puzzled by the idea that Browns demise should call to our minds the violent domination of
black bodies that one associates with the era of lynching and enforcement of a Jim Crow system
of racial caste. Brown was no Emmett Till, either. I am further puzzled by the notion that, if our
goal is to stop the killing of young black men, then what we mainly need to do is reign in the
cops. Far fewer blacks are being murdered in New York City today compared with twenty years
ago. Presumably this has something to do with the police in that city, among many other causes.
This is not to endorse order-obsessed policies such as stop-and-frisk, which has been so
controversial and, so far as I am aware, has not been shown to reduce violence. It is merely to
say that the police deserve some credit for this palpable improvement in the safety of that citys
residents which has especially benefited young black men because they are vastly more likely to
be the victims of homicide. Why, as a general matter, should we view the police as the enemies
of the ones whose lives they may have saved?
Of course there are problems in urban policing. I agree with those who call for improved policecommunity relations and cooperative efforts to produce safer streets and less crime. I agree that
the warrior-cop mentality is rampant in some police departments around the country, that it is fed
by demonizing narratives about black criminality, and that it results in oppressive treatment of
the residents of many high-crime areas in our cities. Alternative models of policing can make
people safer while preserving the legitimacy of law enforcement. Police departments, especially
when operating in predominantly black areas, should be encouraged to pursue such alternatives.
But, again, none of this has much to do with the Brown case. Nor, as far as I can see, will the
moment of transformation from the warrior cop mentality to the community policing mentality
be hastened by calling Wilson a murderer or by demanding his head on a platter. Only time will
tell about the extent to which recent protests will develop into a sustained and productive
challenge to the political status quo. The same forecast was made about Occupy Wall Street three
years ago, but the prediction seems to have been mistaken. Perhaps this case will be different,
but, if the mantra remains hands up, dont shoot in honor of Brown, I seriously doubt it.

The reflex to define this moment in terms of the historic black freedom struggle is
understandable, but ultimately it is a mistake. It is, moreover, a betrayal and trivialization of that
great effort. It is the responsibility of black intellectuals such as me to say this even if I am alone
in doing so. I am not arguing against myself here. Rather, I am being true to my calling as an
intellectual, a black man, and an American citizen