The Clippers and Ferguson, MO

In the wake of the Donald Sterling brouhaha, I said that blacks need to do better.  It was not encouraging that a very silly scandal revealed a surfeit of poor reaction that redounded no one's credit.

Now, we have Ferguson, MO, and although we talking about real tragedy here, a true grievance, I am sad to say that the reaction is similarly poor and discouraging.  The goal here ought to be justice within the system, bolstered accountability to the community, and a reaffirmation of the ideals that this incident reveals we fell short of. 

Instead we are getting the mad dash for free stuff.  The anger is justified, but channeling it into looting and the temporary salve of destruction reflects poorly on the black community.  Think of the message blacks are sending, "don't kill us or we'll burn down your convenience store."  Is that how cheaply they account for the life of one of their own?  Perhaps they should be demanding that police not kill them because each life has dignity, because the police work for them to ensure their safety.  Perhaps they should be demanding that we account for our role in a system that falls short in this regard.  They should be demanding that we do some soul searching, make us look into why we fell short.  Instead, it's a mad dash for a looted stash of goodies.

Joseph Epstein has a similar take today in the WSJ, lamenting the lack of real leadership.

More here.