Don’t Look Away from Mike Brown (Zizek/Lacan 3)

The death of unarmed teenager Mike Brown is a problem, and a persistent one (explainer). Watching livefeed of the earliest protests, I remember a commenter speculating that the furor would die down in a couple weeks. I was inclined to agree, and yet here we are two months later and Ferguson remains a prominent issue. As I write this, protests are happening all over the country for #O22 and Missouri Governor Jay Nixon is the target of a Twitter storm. This on the heels of the large protests held earlier this month as part of Ferguson October.

The protesters’ reaction to police officer Darren Wilson’s actions has become an action in itself, thereby instigating a reaction in the form of anti-protesters. The anti-protesters range from racists who hurl verbal abuse at protesters to everyday decent folk discomfited by the whole incident, and it is the objections of this latter group that most interest me. I am convinced they know Darren Wilson was horribly wrong that day on Canfield Drive but for some reason still side with him.

In debate, they will say that riots are bad, that protests achieve nothing and that it’s all race-baiting anyway. They will say the police are heroes who protect the people for little reward. They will say the call to arrest Darren Wilson is a witch hunt and we should wait for the results of an investigation. They will say it’s in the past, so let it go. As mind-boggling as it is, they will complain about young men who wear their pants too low.

All of this avoids the central problem of Darren Wilson shooting Mike Brown to death.

They will even blame the victim. They will tell you things that appear to be true, that he hung around with gang members, wrote rap lyrics, smoked marijuana, shoplifted, and physically threatened a store clerk. They will tell you things alleged, that he assaulted Darren Wilson and tried to grab his weapon. They will tell you things proven false, that he beat Darren Wilson so badly the officer had to be hospitalized with severe injuries. And in doing this, they support a position contradictory to what they know to be true.

Namely, a police officer killing an unarmed teenager is bad, bad business.

The arguments of the anti-protester crowd are the result of defense mechanisms for avoiding the ugly truth at the point of origin: A police officer shot an unarmed teenager dead. Specifically, Darren Wilson of the Ferguson Police Department fired repeatedly at unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown, hitting him at least six times (twice in the head) according to a preliminary autopsy. Mike Brown’s death--to say nothing of broader problems such as social inequality and abuse of power--is a stain on the fantasy view of the world that we often trick ourselves into believing is reality. His death is a threat to a more comfortable view of society and therefore must be repressed.

I suspect that what really rankles the average anti-protestor isn’t anything more than mild distaste for people who go into the street (or online) and make a scene. They find all the tears and the gnashing of teeth to be unseemly. Raising a fuss and being an eyesore in public spaces isn’t what decent people do. It may sound trivial, but there is a culture in America within which this is motivation enough to ignore the unjust death of a boy at the hands of the law.

Mike Brown’s death is indeed a stain, a blot, a blemish on the face of American society, and this is less figurative than you might think. Mike Brown’s body was eventually removed from the street, but his face continues to show up in photographs in the news and his name appears on the protesters' signs and in their chants. This week, a mural in New Jersey showing Mike Brown’s face accompanied by the phrase “Sagging pants is not probable cause!!” had to be painted over because it made the local police uncomfortable.

Stain removed. Blemish hidden. Truth repressed.

Through terminology such as defense mechanism and repression, I am applying rudimentary psychoanalytical theory to a social phenomenon. I just read in Lacan by Lionel Bailly that French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan believed some signifiers buried in the unconscious were so integral to the psyche’s coherence that unearthing them would cause the patient to come unraveled. Thus, they were better left untouched. But as individuals faced with Ferguson, we are not facing a truth as psychologically identity-shattering as that, are we?

So you have a choice. Assuming you do know in your heart of hearts that police officers gunning down unarmed teenagers is wrong, you may face this or avert your gaze. You may identify with the victim and say “I am Mike Brown” (earlier post), or you may keep making excuses to avoid looking at the ugly truth. If you choose the former, the world will not fall apart, only your picture of it will. If you choose the latter, you will have further chances to redeem yourself: The next Mike Brown, the next Eric Garner, the next Trayvon Martin will be along all too soon.

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Earlier posts in this series:

Ferguson: How Did We Get Here?

Identifying with Ferguson as Symptom