Stories of Prejudice

First, a definition:

prejudice -- preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience

I bring this up in memory of a favorite high school teacher of mine having to explain to a black classmate that the meaning of "prejudice" was not confined to racial bigotry. In a conversation about college, he had described his younger self with the adjective, causing her to laugh.

It sounds like a few thousand reporters also missed that memo. At City Journal, Heather MacDonald does an excellent job of distilling two months of leftist "reporting" on Ferguson down to eleven hundred words and change. Here is a representative sample:

The next highest categories of driving infraction are blasting loud music out your car and driving with tinted windows. Attend police-community meetings in poor areas and you will regularly hear complaints about cars with deafening sound systems. Should the police ignore such complaints? Are they ignoring similar complaints in white areas because they want to give whites a pass? Do Ferguson's white and black drivers blast loud music from their cars at the same rate? We never learn. Tinted windows pose a possibly lethal threat to the police during traffic stops, since they prevent officers from assessing the situation inside the car before approaching. Ignoring this infraction puts officers' lives at risk. Should the police nevertheless do so? Such is the implication, if doing so would mean fewer fines for black motorists. The New York Times quotes a victim of the racist Ferguson traffic-enforcement system, who was fined for driving without a license. Why was his license suspended--was he driving drunk? Did he hit someone? We will never know. What is the crime rate in the black areas of Ferguson? Also something that the mainstream press is not interested in finding out. [bold added]

Please do note the many potential instances of "profiling" that, if prevented or punished harshly enough, will ultimately harm the very people for whom the anti-profilers profess concern.

MacDonald also notes something that has become apparent to me from events and a couple of casual conversations, neither of which I initiated:

A grand jury is under enormous pressure to charge Officer Darren Wilson with murder for shooting Brown, with the usual threats of even more vicious riots to come should the grand jury fail to deliver an indictment.

On the day the jury was empaneled or shortly after, I went to the bank in Clayton, the county seat of St. Louis County, where the grand jury is empaneled. Upon leaving, I heard a commotion and found a major street -- where the courthouse is located -- blocked off. I determined then and there that I would be nowhere near there when its findings are announced or during any future trial dates. I am also glad that, despite the constant media barrage pre-judging them as bigots, area police, based on evidence the media refuse to consider, are preparing for the worst.

-- CAV