Turbulence in Ferguson Could Lead to Greater Understanding

Mari Cooper

4W

12/15/14

Central Claim:

Alan Caron believes that the Ferguson tragedy was one that brought up continuous racial issues. He states it “has revealed all the deeply rooted racial prejudices that exist in America today.” On top of this, unlike other police brutality accidents, this one has no proof. Instead, we are focusing on our own personal beliefs and assumptions because that’s the only thing we have. Caron brings up the fact that we don’t know whether it was an attack on an innocent man, or a brutal attack on the police officer. The eye witnesses and physical evidence supports both of these claims, therefore, there’s no way anyone can say for sure what happened. He also makes a stab at how certain people handle these types of debates, especially T.V. news channels. He believes that “commentary on both sides has become overheated, over-simplified and inflammatory.”

Evidence:

The first pieces of evidence that Caron uses is when he states that the Ferguson tragedy personal standings is based solely on one’s personal experience with the police force. He backs this up with statistics from the Washington Post’s poll: “85 percent of blacks and 60 percent of Hispanics oppose the recent grand jury decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, while 58 percent of whites approve of that decision.” The rest of Caron’s piece focuses heavily on the fact that this tragedy is even more so a tragedy because of the lack of proof. He resurfaces the Rodney King attack and how that brought the same kind of turmoil to our country. However, this attack was recorded on video and King lived to tell the tale. Neither of these things exist in the Ferguson case. At least King was able to speak his side of the story and inspire people. Caron states that even thought the Ferguson tragedy was horrible in itself, “an even greater tragedy will be in not learning from them and advancing ourselves.”

Opinion:

I agree with everything that Caron says. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but in this case, no one can prove that their opinion is right. Caron says that he’s been listening to a lot of people stating their opinion and thinking that they know exactly what happened as well as being completely close minded toward the other side of the story. This is why, in this particular situation, opinion may not get us very far. I also agree that this tragedy is extra horrible because, unlike other similar events, we will not be able to learn or grow as a country because their is no proof, and people’s opinions are so strong.