How Mika Brzezinski Helped Me Understand Racism.

I like politics and though I am not a huge fan of Morning Joe, I like listening to their daily podcast and their banter.  Some days it is pretty entertaining.  Some days, they teach you a little something.  A few days ago, Mika Brzezinski of Morning Joe filled in some of the blanks about Keith Scott, the man shot and killed by police in Charlotte two weeks ago sparking riots there that went on for days.
Mika reported that according to court papers filed a year ago by his wife, Mrs. Scott applied for a restraining order against him alleging that he had a gun and that he was threatening to kill his family with it.  Scott's lawyer stated that whether or not Keith Scott had a gun should have no bearing on whether or not the shooting was justified.
Mika said that she doesn't think you can discount that...
One of her co-hosts stepped up and said that it had nothing to do with the police shooting though.
This is where it gets a little strange, to me at least.  Mika goes on to bring up the fact that his wife was saying, on the video she was shooting, "Keith don't do it."  Which is true.  But she is also telling the police not to shoot and that [in her assertion] "He's unarmed!"  Mika leaves this part out.
The co host says, "that is a big jump from..."
and he is interrupted by Mika and Joe Scarborough almost instantaneously, each essentially saying that Scott's background is relevant to the shooting.
Joe ups the ante by asking "What if the black cop's wife had written that about him?"   Scarborough claims that if the cop had a history of violence that would have come out then he would have been skewered and the Left or Liberals would have rejoiced.
Mika says that it would have "sealed the deal for them [the cops]."

Let's take a moment, shall we?
I think the first thing that has to be said is that there is respect for cops by and large, though it may not seem like it.  The reason it does not seem like it is that people are angry right now.  I am often annoyed by the police, but I have no ill will towards the vast majority of them. (This is the disclaimer that every person who says something negative about any police officer anywhere must give lest they be labeled a cop hater.)

Now that that's out of the way, let's look at the thing that pissed me off about the exchange.  There are some things that we have to get straight right off the bat.  The first being the over arching assertion that cops and criminals are on equal footing.  They are not.  A criminal is  criminal and not necessarily held to any code of ethics whereas the officer is a duly appointed law enforcement officer to whom we as a community issue a badge, gun, taser, etc.

The co-host (Willie Geist? [I am unsure because I listen to the podcast, I do not watch the show and it is hard to tell voices]) was absolutely right.  Keith Scott's background is irrelevant for one major reason, the cops were not there to get him.  They were there to serve a warrant on someone else apparently.  One officer claims to have seen Scott in his car with a gun and a joint and then he and his partner went to get their vests and arrest him.  There are things that do not match up from there but at this point it would be conjecture on my part.

The point is that they have no way of knowing anything about his past.  His wife obviously had forgiven him or whatever occurred because she was right there begging, pleading, and at times ordering the police not to shoot him and saying that he has a TBI (traumatic brain injury).  His past is not the issue.  The debate is about whether in that moment, for that instance, was he a danger to himself and to others.  If someone says yes, I will beg to differ, but what Mika and Joe and many others are not getting about this situation and many others is what is at the core of why there are riots etc.

Blacks obviously do not have the privilege that whites do in this instance and instances like this.  Yes, he was shot by a black cop and yes it can still be construed as racism because more often than not white people do not face the same scrutiny that blacks do by any race of cop.  The issue is not who is doing the perceiving, the issue is that the perception exists and the narrative becomes "hey, there is a black guy who has not done anything, let's pull him over. stop him, run his license, frisk him, whatever."  Let's get him or her in custody, and we'll figure out what they did after the fact.  In fact, a number of the encounters, the encounters themselves bring charges to the individual.  It is odd to think of the number of men and women who are tackled to the ground screaming and thinking, "what did I do?"

During the exchange on Morning Joe, they said that there were things that they just did not know yet and that the investigation was ongoing and that it was good to have as much information as possible.  The problem is that she did not even know the things that we already know.  There was no cursory study of the incident or keeping up with the story as it unfolded.  She DID know that Scott's wife had once filed charges against him.  She knew all the parts of the video where the wife was saying "Don't do it." but did not know the rest.

This whole thing has put things in perspective.  Blacks have done something.  We just have to figure out what it is.

We are going to be writing a lot more about a lot of issues.  We are going to get a lot deeper and try to clarify some issues and get more voices out there.  Slowly but surely...
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