President Obama’s Monday night speech on the grand jury decision in Ferguson, Mo., was completely ignored by the arsonists, rioters and looters who took charge there that night. It was almost jarring to watch the president call for calm on one side of the split screen while scenes of the burgeoning riot played on the other.
“Those of you who are watching tonight,” Obama said, “understand that there’s never an excuse for violence, particularly when there are a lot of people of good will out there who are willing to work on these issues.”
Obama was exactly right, but unfortunately his words meant little to the rioters.
When voters picked Obama in 2008, the public held out hope that the election of first black president would help heal the nation’s racial wounds.
People have, accordingly, expected a lot from him as he responds to national racial controversies. This is part of what’s fueling calls for him to visit Ferguson. But the scenes from Ferguson, whether of mourning or of violence, are a reminder that words and symbolism cannot magically alleviate long-standing tensions.
If there is to be progress, it will have to start with drawing a distinction between protesters and rioters. Those offering defenses or excuses for what happened in Ferguson are conflating the rioters, who burned a dozen buildings and shot at responding firefighters, with peaceful protesters who support the just cause of police accountability. These pundits are merely enabling the former and delegitimizing the latter. The popular slogan, “No justice, no peace,” is a threat. The truth is almost the opposite: Those who work against civic peace are enemies of justice. Rioters who destroy businesses owned by and serving a majority-black community do not advance civil rights.
According to St. Louis County Police, roughly 85 percent of those arrested Monday night are not even residents of Ferguson. Based on their activity in recent weeks, it appears that some of the same anarchists who rioted in Ferguson brought violence to Seattle in 1999 and to Oakland in the 2011 Occupy protests.
Protesters were well within their rights to express anger and frustration with the grand jury outcome peacefully, as they did in many cities. But the people who destroyed much of Ferguson should be dealt with harshly. If convicted, they should be given the maximum sentence — no plea deals. The threat of violence is not a legitimate tool of social change. The rule of law, the force that uplifted civil rights in the last century after decades of officials ignoring the law and the Constitution, is more important than any individual decision that fallible human beings make based on individual laws.
By Tuesday morning, as news watchers got their first glimpses of Ferguson’s rubble, the vandals and arsonists had already guaranteed that the story has become one about street violence. The shooting of Michael Brown, and any possible injustice involved, was already a distant afterthought as the governor of Missouri called in 2,200 National Guard troops to protect the community on Tuesday night.
What was destroyed Monday was not just the businesses of local residents of Ferguson, but also the progress made this summer in curtailing the trend toward police militarization.
