The shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., has been so heavily politicized that it would have been unreasonable to expect Brown’s funeral to be free of politics — especially when it featured a eulogy by the Rev. Al Sharpton. And indeed, the Brown service, held Monday at Friendly Temple Missionary Baptist Church in St. Louis, was intensely political. But not in the way some observers expected.

It’s probably safe to say most white viewers thought Sharpton would deliver a rabble-rousing condemnation of the police, the government, and the American system, concluding that they all combined to end a promising 18-year-old life. On that, Sharpton came through; the first half of his speech and his summation were essentially restatements of much of the anti-cop rhetoric surrounding the Brown shooting.