Let’s engage in a thought experiment. Let’s say you’re a middle aged white man on a commuter train in St. Louis. A young black man sits next to you and asks you your opinion on the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson would you be within your legal rights to draw your legally licensed firearm and shoot the young man dead? It’s beginning to look to me as though you might be:
(CNN)When one man sat down next to a second man in a St. Louis light rail car and asked him his opinion on the shooting of Michael Brown, it was not the beginning of a discussion.
It was the start of an assault, police said.
The second man, who was white, didn’t want to answer the question. Then the first man, who was black, boxed him in the face. Two more African-American men joined in the beating, according to a police report about Monday’s incident.
It was caught on surveillance cameras on the MetroLink train and a passenger recorded it with a cell phone and posted the video online. It has gone viral.
Police confirmed to CNN that the online images came from the attack.
The victim, 43, was commuting home when a young man in a red T-shirt and cap walked up to him. The victim asked not to be named in media reports.
The man asked to use the victim’s cell phone. He declined, and the young man sat down beside him.
“Then he asked me my opinion on the Michael Brown thing,” the victim told KMOV, “and I responded I was too tired to think about it right now.”
The suspect, in his 20s, stood up.
“The next thing I know, he sucker punches me right in the middle of my face,” the victim said. The video showed the suspect unleashing a barrage of punches at the head of the victim, who covered himself with his hand and forearms.
The two other men, also in their 20s, joined in, police said. As the train pulled into a station, a security guard saw part of the beating and alerted police.
Lest there be any doubt I do not view the developments of recent months as benign and this is one more piece of evidence. It also makes me wonder what the heck Howard Schultz was thinking when he started his “Race Together” project at Starbucks. He should have known better. In the neighborhood that he grew up in (and the one I spent my early years in) starting a racial dialogue was a good way to get yourself killed. Or at least beaten up.
That story is a prime example of someone being put between a rock and a hard spot.
If the “victim” responded with something the questioner didn’t like he would have received a punch in the face. By opting out of engaging in the conversation altogether, it also warranted a punch in the face. The only way out of being personally injured would have been articulating a PC answer the other guy would have applauded.
Basically, this was not a situation of someone inviting a legitimate dialogue, but rather someone baiting another in order to create a racially motivated ruckus.
Assuming the description is accurate, I would have responded in the same way as the white guy (and I’m a white guy too). I can’t speak for anyone else, but if a stranger comes up and asks my opinion about some controversial topic then my instinct is to deflect and not answer the question.
Assuming you have to answer the question, best to do something like this:
Yute: What’s your opinion of the Michael Brown thing?
You: Old Yeller.
Yute: What?
You: You know, Sugar Ray Collins.
Yute: What the fuck?
You: The Will of The Giant flying Spaghetti Monster will be done!
If the guy doesn’t back up by then just go full ranting prophet mode. Nobody wants to fuck with a crazy person. (Yeah, if he puts Sugar Ray Collins & Old Yeller together, you’re getting a beat down, but that was already on the cards. Such a person isn’t likely to put together an old movie with a minor character from a 20 year-old movie anyway.)