A Failure To Properly Socialize

So unlike most of those out protesting with the discredited "hands up don't shoot" signs, I've been reading the transcripts of the witness testimony. As I read Dorian Johnson's portion I was struck by how he, and Brown, were examples of our, the grown adults of our communities, failure to socialize our children.

Says Dorian:

So we are walking down the street...and traffic started going, but no one blew their horns, no one made irregular turns to get around us like we were in the way and no one yelled out their windows, you guys are in the way, get out of the street, anything like that.

What Dorian is saying is that the adults in the community never set an expectation of behavior and therefore never enforced such behavior. And because the adults never made him observe what we call common courtesy and civilized behavior, Dorian later took offense to a police officer doing exactly what the adults in his community should have done: told him to "get the fuck out the street".

It is our failures to teach these "little things" that add up that causes problems. I've passed a lot of people in the middle of the street, crossing the street and wide diagonal angles that puts them in the street far longer than necessary. Folks who will take their own sweet time and look at me like they dare me to hit 'em. Nobody says anything. Why? Mr. Brown demonstrated why.

Believe me, the people who aren't annoyed by this behavior and attitude are far and few between.