Michael Brown’s tragic death in the streets of Ferguson is only the latest example of the fractures which still exist in our society. Fears of racial discrimination and abuse of power remain an ever-present reality in segments of America. Yet the conservative response to the grand jury decision in Ferguson has demonstrated an inability to understand the complexity of social problems or the possibility of systemic abuse.
Conservative rhetoric after the Ferguson verdict verged on the celebratory. Justice had been done. The rule of law had triumphed. Yet these vacuous slogans ignore that, regardless of the facts of this particular case, a significant portion of the American public believes that the political system remains partial to the powerful and privileged. Even if Wilson acted properly on the fateful day (and there remain a number of unanswered questions about the testimony of Wilson and the witnesses), the nationwide response demonstrates that we do indeed have a crisis of faith in the American justice system, a crisis of which race remains an integral part. But conservatives responded to concerns about a broken legal system by trumpeting that very system’s verdict.
As conservatives should know, discrimination, aggression, and hunger for power are rooted in human nature; given coercive power, people tend to abuse it. When taxation or health care are on the table, conservatives sift through governmental actions with a fine-toothed comb. Yet when a police officer shoots an unarmed young man seven times, conservatives will put absolute faith in “the rule of law,” ignoring its reliance on men and women susceptible to pride, racism, and abusive behavior to enforce. Police brutality, frequently against minorities, occurs regularly in America. Yet conservatives turn a blind eye to it. Meanwhile, police departments continue to militarize across the nation and heavily-armed law enforcement suppress protests with tear gas.
Conservatives preach faith in the rule of law and in legal tradition, but when the so-called prosecutor unprecedentedly modifies grand jury procedure and announces the result in a rambling speech defending the decision, conservatives preach that justice has been done.
The response to protests in Ferguson was no better. Conservatives accepted the verdict and urged everyone just to shut up and go home. However, preaching “the rule of law” to a group of people who believe that its perverted foundations favor the powerful and privileged is worse than pointless; it is an attempt to silence dissent. When Americans protest the system, conservatives tell them to go home and wait for the status quo to change itself, forgetting that our greatest ethical heroes have willingly flouted unjust systems.
Ignoring the nonviolent protests, conservatives have focused on the violent acts which have transpired in Ferguson. These are indeed deeply problematic. However, conservatives once again refuse to consider what drives people to these extremes. “A riot,” Martin Luther King Jr. said, “is the language of the unheard.” When frustration reaches a boiling point, the human tendency is to lash out in violence. Of course, this is unproductive, as King knew well. Nevertheless, the complete inability of the conservative response to protests, riots, and complaints about racial injustice and police brutality to understand what leads to mass discontent is maddening.
Conservatives should know better. With their suspicions of the coercive power of the nation-state, their awareness of the dependence of institutions upon the fabric of society, and their long tradition of protest, conservatives should understand systemic discrimination and abuses of power. Instead, they have closed their eyes and ears to the possibility of evil, while the voices of the unheard become louder and louder. The “rule of law” is ultimately empty until it joins an understanding of the tendencies of power structures to institutionalize power and prejudice.
