Right v. wrong, legal v. illegal

Some years ago Tom Selleck made a series of made for TV movies with Jesse Stone as the main character.  Jesse was the police chief in a small Massachusetts coastal town called Paradise - which of course, it wasn't.  He had been kicked off the LA police force because of his drinking and Paradise was his last chance in this lifetime to do police work.

I happen to enjoy the series and have watched it a couple of times but here's the point: one of Jesse's favorite sayings is this "You're talking about right and wrong.  I don't do 'right and wrong'.  I do 'legal and illegal'.

It's a wonderfully succinct summation of a long standing dilemma for most of us.  We are often confronted with stuff that is clearly wrong, it just isn't illegal.

I mention this because the Grand Jury in Ferguson, Missouri is about to hand up its findings.  I do not expect the police officer to be indicted.  The burden of evidence necessary to bring an indictment against a police officer is huge.

Which doesn't mean that what happened isn't wrong.  It doesn't mean that we shouldn't use this occasion to pressure all those in positions of power to confront the reality of our ingrained racism and re-tool, re-evaluate, and re-train themselves.

It is wrong that young black men need to have police survival skills.  It is wrong that mothers of teenage black boys kick into serious worry when their sons are late getting home.  It is wrong that we - the privileged white population - continue to make assumptions about others based on the color of their skin.  We try not to; we are often successful.......until we aren't.

It doesn't do anyone any good to claim we don't make judgments based on race, because it isn't true. Although I can't give you any examples, I know we make all kinds of judgments, subtle and otherwise based on racial assumptions that we don't even know we have (which is exactly why I can't give you any examples).

I believe that things are going to get very heated in Ferguson; I pray that there is very little and limited violence.  But I think Jesse Stone put it well.  In the end, this is about right and wrong, and we all know which is which

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