A Decade of Ignorance | City Journal

Ferguson inaugurated ten years of lies about race in America. - Mike Gonzalez

This month marks the tenth anniversary of events that changed the trajectory of this country, and not for the better. On August 9, 2014, Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri...

• The catalyzing event was a personal tragedy, but from a journalistic perspective, it should have been pretty ho-hum. Wilson was a cop, and Brown had just robbed a convenience store, violently overpowering the clerk. When Wilson tried to stop him in the street, Brown scuffled with him, reaching inside his police SUV through the driver’s window. Brown then ran off and Wilson gave chase. At some point, Brown turned around and charged Wilson. That was when Wilson killed him.

The entire encounter, the Department of Justice later said in a revealing report, lasted two minutes. And that’s how long the story would have lasted, too, except that Wilson was white and Brown was black, and had just turned 18 less than three months earlier...

• They claimed that Brown had tried to surrender, raising his hands and pleading with Wilson, “Hands up, don’t shoot!” but the policeman still wantonly gunned him down. 
• That fed the narrative that the killing was part of an epidemic of police killing unarmed blacks in America. 
• And this, in turn, reinforced a theme that the country is “systemically racist” and oppressive.

Each of these contentions was false...