I could only stomach a few minutes of Michael Brown’s funeral.  I was not intending to watch one second of it, but the headline on the article drew me in:

“Michael Brown’s funeral highlights his faith.”

Is he is now being remembered as a man of faith, a Christian, an individual who read and honored the Bible, practiced its holy precepts, and lived his life in the same manner as the Lord Jesus did? If we followed Brown around for three days, would we walk from that interaction as if we had been following the Lord Himself?

Honestly, I would be embarrassed—ashamed even—to be a black American if I had the unfortunate position of being in attendance at this funeral.  This thug, a bully, a robber and a thief, who was shot dead because he had tried to perhaps murder a policeman with his bare, huge hands, was being remembered as a hero, a man of faith, an exemplary citizen.

I am not speaking with mere platitudes; we have the video evidence of him robbing the convenience store and grabbing the much smaller store worker by the scruff of his shirt and pushing him into a chip display, minutes before he was shot by Wilson.

We also know that Brown’s accomplice in the crime, Dorian Johnson, also seen in the video, lied when he said that Brown was shot in the back and had his hands raised when Officer Wilson shot him.  Johnson’s false testimony is unmistakably responsible for igniting the fire keg that exploded into the subsequent rioting, looting, shooting and general mayhem that gripped the city of Ferguson night after night.

There is unmistakeable evidence that both Brown and Johnson engaged in criminal acts within moments of Brown’s death.  But this piece of damming evidence, throwing the claim of Brown’s death as being a brutal murder by the hand of a racist, trigger-happy cop on its head, has not dampened the black’s communities zeal for portraying him as a helpless hero/victim.  They are insisting on perpetuating the charade that Brown is a hero.

Brown is being lauded as somewhat of a prophet by his stepmother, Cal Brown. The New York Times wrote this:

 “[She] said that just weeks before he was shot, Mr. Brown had described a dream in which he had seen bloody sheets hanging on a clothes line. ‘He pretty much prophesied his own death and he didn’t even realize it,’ she said, calling him ‘an awesome man’ who wanted to have a family and ‘be a good father.'”

(On a side note, unlike the vast majority of news articles that identify Michael Brown as a “teenager,” Cal Brown correctly identifies him as a “man.”)

We need to add “prophet” to Brown’s growing list of nouns used to describe his exemplary character.

The article continues:

“In addition to numerous readings from the Bible, there were readings from Dr. King and references to significant court cases in black history.”

Now Brown is—unbelievably—grouped in the same category as Martin Luther King, Jr., a man known worldwide for his commitment to non-violence in his pursuit of bringing the black community their long overdue justice.   What an insult to his memory and his pursuit for non-violent justice to have his name dragged into the same category as this criminal thug.

What’s wrong with the black community?  Don’t they see nor understand that continually portraying this criminal as some kind of helpless victim and hero is only enlarging the divide that exists between blacks and whites?  That their responses are causing the white community to become angry at their ridiculous, emotion driven positions?

There is increasing evidence that Brown attacked this officer, with some unconfirmed reports that Wilson was seriously injured with an “orbital blowout fracture.”  Whether or not the extent of his injuries are as severe as reported, the facts that Wilson shot Brown in self defense is mounting.  So much of this story is yet to be told, with the facts needing to be separated from the lies and unsubstantiated reports from the witnesses.

Clearly, there is sufficient evidence for the black community and their leaders (Sharpton in particular) to stop this incessant and unfounded drumbeat that portrays Brown as a hero/victim.  The fact that he was involved in a strong arm robbery minutes before his death is ample evidence that the heated rhetoric calling for “justice” against Wilson should be squelched.

According to the New York Times article quoted above, Sharpton’s fiery rhetoric caused this reaction:

“In an overflow room where mourners watched the service on television across the street from the church, Mr. Sharpton’s remarks riled up the crowd. Some men left the overflow room to the street and began loudly chanting ‘hands up, don’t shoot.’ One woman wildly screamed back, ‘Be quiet. Be quiet. Respect that family…'”

All this happens while people who want to see true justice come into this sad situation sit back and watch these insane scenes occurring in the black community.  If Wilson is guilty of murdering this young man, he should—he must—be tried and convicted; nobody questions this.

But if Wilson acted in self-defense, then virtually everything the black community is saying and doing (looting, rioting, shooting at police, calling Wilson a murderer and treating him as a criminal, falsely painting this incident as motivated by color, etc.) will be found to not only be the product of knee-jerk reactions, but their defense of a criminal; the castigating of an innocent man is a crime in itself, a horrific rush to judgment.

The black community has made an unbelievable blunder in this case.  Each day they uphold Brown as a folk hero only succeeds in further driving the wedge that separates whites from blacks.