Had I died at 18, and if the NYT had written an article about me post-mortem the way they chose to write about Mike Brown, these are the facts they’d have had to include:
Mike…was no angel, public records and interviews with friends and family revealing both problems and promise in his young life. Suspected of a string of retail theft and campus disturbances, shortly after departing his hometown for military service nearly all of his known associates received lengthy prison sentences for various serious crimes up to and including involuntary manslaughter. Until his tenure in the Army, Mike lived in a state of constant conflict with his community, once even being briefly detained by the school resource officer, accused of assaulting two students. It was later revealed that there were larger issues in play with this violent attack after the parents of the pair declined to press charges. However, this was not the only such incident noted by those who knew him. About these and other outbursts of aggression, Mike produced violent and pugilistic short stories and poems in his creative writing class that were rejected as too controversial for his high school paper. Other students mentioned that he was at turns distant and confrontational, and many suspected that he peddled drugs on campus though no charges were ever brought.
I could go on. (My name is also Mike, by the way.) But I’m white. I’d never get treated that way, even though if I’d died at 18 the above would’ve been a perfectly accurate summation of my life till that point. And with more that I could add.
By the way, I never sold or did drugs but everyone “knew” that I did. I’ve never had more than a bit of alcohol in my system. No idea why anyone thought differently, other than just stereotyping.
