the beautiful ones.

words.

for your consideration...

"...cherry-picked details of his life may not matter for the inquest into his shooting. But that doesn’t make his character irrelevant. His character definitely matters. It matters to the black people who are still alive, those of us who have to continue to muster the resolve to participate in and contribute to a country in which Brown was shot and left to languish, uncovered, for hours on the pavement.

...The black community is fond of the idea of the Good Ones, not because it’s logical or reasonable, but because it gives people agency. It allows black people to believe the notion that effort breeds success — that, through preparation, diligence and sacrifice, we can build lives that can’t be taken away on a whim. It allows black parents to operate under the delusion afforded to all parents that keeping their children safe and ensuring their success is entirely within their sphere of control. It allows resilience in the face of indignity.

Yes, in the passionate debate around Brown’s shooting, casting him in glowing terms — college-bound, funny, gentle — risks eliciting ad hominem attacks against him and promulgating the idea that black people have to do a certain thing or be a certain way to earn their right to live. But talking around Brown’s character further dilutes his basic rights and validates the underlying premise of a terroristic act. It suggests that speaking kindly of a dead child is more trouble than it’s worth. It requires accepting that not much has changed for black parents since they were conceiving kids during slavery, when they couldn’t even expect their children to be treated as if they belong to someone."

THE WASHINGTON POST: Actually, it does matter that Michael Brown was going to college