In Defense of "Thugs"

I am not here to demonize Darren Wilson. I have many former students, and people I coached who are police officers and when tragedies like this happen, I prefer to focus on how police are being deployed, trained and instructed to perform rather than an individual officer's actions.

However, I am beyond ENRAGED by the campaign of demonization directed at Michael Brown. This so-called "thug" was no different from hundreds of thousands of young men playing high school and college football, no different from scores of young men I coached, and not much different from what I was like at his age. The chances were excellent, given his family and his future college plans, that he would lead a productive life, like millions of other so called "thugs" before him. Like my players. Like my students. Like me

.His death was an unspeakable tragedy. A waste of talent and potential. And a terrible blow to the prospects of unity and understanding in our divided nation.

Until we learn to love and protect our Michael Browns, we are descending into a very deep hole, one our history has prepared for us, but
from which we still have time to escape.