That is the first line of a powerful column for Friday's Washington Post by Eugene Robinson, officially titled Dehumanizing Ferguson.
It is, as is often the case with Robinson's writing, very much to the point. For example, in responding to the remarks by Police Officer Darren Wilson that he felt like a 5 year old child holding on to Hulk Hogan, we read
Brown was about 6-feet-4 and weighed nearly 300 pounds — a large man, to be sure, but human, not demonic. Wilson is also about 6-feet-4 and reportedly weighs 210. I’m not aware of many 5-year-olds that size.
He reminds us of what happened after the incident that led to Brown's death:
In the disturbances that closely followed Brown’s death, police responded with tear gas, armored vehicles and an array of military-style equipment more suitable for crowd control in a war zone than in an American suburb. This made sense only if Ferguson was seen not as a community to be policed but as a place to be contained and controlled.
and follows that immediately with
Citizens — because that’s what the people of Ferguson are, not subjects — reacted with anger. Officials promised afterward that they had learned a lesson and would not repeat the mistake. Instead, they made new ones.
Elsewhere today I have added my voice to those who opine that the prosecutor and one might even say the Governor seemed almost to want violence to distract from the wrongness of how the grand jury investigation of Darren Wilson had transpired and how it ended without an indictment. As Robinson writes,
McCulloch presented both sides of the case in great detail, essentially asking grand jurors — not trial jurors — to be adjudicators of the facts. He put Brown on trial, not Wilson.
But that is a misuse - even an abuse - of the purpose of a grand jury.
Please keep reading.
Yes it is tragic that there were riots, that there was violence, that store owners who had nothing to do with the killing nor with the misuse of the grand jury to whitewash was still appears to be a deliberate murder by a policeman, yet again, by a white policeman of a black male. Some who worked in the destroyed businesses will have lost employment. And the riots and destruction will be used by some as an excuse not to confront what the real problem is.
Which is why you need to read this column.
You especially need to pay attention to Robinson's final paragraph:
By no means would I ever seek to excuse the arson, looting and senseless destruction that took place Monday night. But policing is something that should be done with a community, not to it. Officials were treating the people of Ferguson like a rabble long before the first police car was torched.
And too many officials still treat too many of color, too many who are poor, and especially those who are both poor and of color, as less than fully human, as less than entitled to the full protection of the law.
The 14th Amendment says that no state is to deprive any person of the equal protection of the law.
The legal system of St. Louis County and the state of Missouri and the police of Ferguson and of St. Louis County have denied Michael Brown, his parents, his friends, and all who stand with them the equal protection of the law.
The law of the state of Missouri effectively allows police to serve as judge, jury and executioner.
That law as applied seems only to lead to the deaths of black males.
So remember two lines from this powerful column:
the last: Officials were treating the people of Ferguson like a rabble long before the first police car was torched.
and the first: The name Ferguson should become shorthand for dehumanization.