The sports world and real life came face-to-face this week, hopefully serving as a reminder that some of us need to step up our games when it comes to being respectable and compassionate of each other.
Prior to the St. Louis Cardinals’ critical Game 3 win over Los Angeles Dodgers, a small and orderly group of local, mostly black residents converged outside Busch Stadium to protest the recent police-related shooting death of an unarmed black teen at the hands of a white police officer, only to be met with the level of vitriol and disdain that yet make race relations such a hot-button, never-ending issue in this country.
As marchers shouted out dictums calling for justice, dissenters swung for the fences, barking out such retorts as “Africa, Africa, Africa” and “we’re the ones who gave all ya’ll the freedoms that you have.”
Finally, one outraged Cards’ fan seemingly dropped from the rafters to succinctly solve the whole riddle of what separates people along color lines by deadpanning to protestors “if they’d be working, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
Whatever you believe in your heart did or didn’t happen in the moment Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, I would think we all can agree it would never be in the spirit of humanity to marginalize the killing of an unarmed teenager or the subsequent pleas for justice his death has sparked within the only community he came to call home.
A grand jury is still weighing evidence to determine if Wilson should face formal charges in the wake of his actions, though even the way that’s being handled by prosecutors and authorities has only led to more accusations of sabotage and disrespect.
Meanwhile, the city of Ferguson remains a tinderbox, an enclave still on the edge as the fate of its being dangerously hangs in the balance. State authorities have already begun compiling intelligence from larger cities and bigger police departments on how to best handle the even larger-scale riots many expect will follow should Wilson skate unimpeded.
When you hear the mayor of Ferguson warn such an act could lead to “unrest far beyond the city,” and a local gun store owner counter white residents “are afraid the city is going to explode,” even as he reports gun sales are up by 50 percent in anticipation of what might come, you realize planning alone may not be enough to calm the passions of everyone.
And taunts like “Let’s Go Darren,” fired off at those who insist they are only seeking the truth, aren’t likely to change that dynamic any time soon.
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