Liberals continue to make everything about race

The United States has a black Supreme Court justice, a half-black president and many successful black businessmen, but liberals are still constantly harping on race. Apparently, they are unaware that our modern society — where the black unemployment rate is twice as high as the white, and blacks are six times more likely to be incarcerated than whites —  has transcended race. The shooting of an unarmed teenager by a police officer in Ferguson, Mo., is a perfect example of how liberals are constantly exacerbating racial tensions where they do not exist.   

First of all, it is ridiculous that a community, regardless of race, is enraged that an unarmed man was shot six times at a distance. According to Missouri state law, a regular citizen is allowed to use force to “avoid an imminent public or private injury.” I’m sure a police officer is perfectly justified in shooting someone as he flees because he was provoked, even allegedly punched particularly hard. After all, the victim, Michael Brown, was allegedly caught on video stealing cigars and would have caused massive damage with them if he had not been stopped. The police officer was not aware that Brown was a suspect in the robbery, but Brown might have committed a petty misdemeanor as heinous as felonies that have traditionally merited the death penalty.

That being said, the most annoying part is the attention drawn to the fact that Michael Brown was black, while the police officer, Darren Wilson, is white. It has been a whole 50 years since the Civil Rights movement, and it’s not like racism is deeply rooted in an American culture that held blacks as slaves, banned Chinese immigrants and considered the Irish subhuman. 

Ferguson is 67 percent black, and a grand total of three out of its 53 police officers are also black. But that is simply a coincidence. Besides, reasonable people don’t resent it when those in positions of authority don’t appear to represent them. It is only crazy people like the founding fathers who ran around protesting and shouting slogans like “no taxation without representation.”

Even if in the unlikely case where race is a factor, why doesn’t black-on-black crime attract the attention that the Ferguson case has? According to a 2007 Bureau of Justice report, 93 percent of black murder victims are killed by other blacks, but the killing of a black teenager by a white cop makes national news. It is almost as if the police are held to a higher standard than criminal gangs and are supposed to be impartial. This is absolute nonsense, though. It is unfair to expect police officers to stop stereotyping black men as criminals and look for things like suspicious behavior, which takes a lot more work. 

Ultimately, the biggest problem with Ferguson is that it contradicts the reality of our completely colorblind society where being a minority is, if anything, an advantage. Growing up in suburbia, I was never discriminated against because of race, so, logically no one in the entire United States has been negatively affected by the color of their skin. News stories like Ferguson always result in statistics that emphasize racial inequality and ignore our good intentions.  

There are lots of explanations why police in Illinois are twice as likely to search your car if you are black than if you are white that have nothing to do with race. When the liberal media gives such excessive coverage to inter-racial incidents, it only perpetuates the myth that a lot of the times people judge you superficially when they don’t know you.

I urge you not to fall for this liberal deception, which only serves to push their policy of victimhood and collectivism. Instead, think of all the times a black man is portrayed positively in a movie or that one time your friend got a scholarship because he was a minority. These incidents are far more representative of the reality of our post-racial society. This is especially important if you are white, because liberals will try to induce you to feel guilty with their insidious statistics and overly emotional testimonials of those who have experienced racism. 

Stand strong and remember: the best way to be colorblind is to be blind.          

Write to Eli at ejt26@pitt.edu