How would you counter this quote?

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Couldnt think of anywhere else to post this other than those who think deep in the philosophy threads 🙂 How would you respond to this quote. It was posted to Facebook in regards to Ferguson rioters.

“The country is only concerned about nonviolence if it seems that I’m going to get violent. It’s not worried about nonviolence if it’s some Alabama sheriff.”
James Baldwin
 
Sadly it rings true to my ears.
Too many people are more forgiving of something bad just because of who the person is or what position they hold.
That isn’t justice.
 
But do two wrongs make a right? Does it make it right to excuse sin or make vice virtue?
 
Odell said:
Couldnt think of anywhere else to post this other than those who think deep in the philosophy threads 🙂 How would you respond to this quote. It was posted to Facebook in regards to Ferguson rioters.

“The country is only concerned about nonviolence if it seems that I’m going to get violent. It’s not worried about nonviolence if it’s some Alabama sheriff.”
James Baldwin
Click to expand...
In what context was violence advocated by James Baldwin?

It certainly wasn’t any kind of violence that would have been advocated by Martin Luther King, Jr.
 
I don’t “counter it” as much as explain that it is how the legal system must work unless no one would want the job of sheriff or everyone would take the law in there own hands.

Sheriffs are given a badge that in part symbolizes the legalization of violent force to apprehend suspected criminals. With this legal status an enforcement officer is to follow a defined procedure of applying violent or deadly force, but the decisions in following these procedures can be difficult to apply in the time period and varied circumstances of performing their duties; therefore, leeway is applied to judgement of a law enforcement even when they act outside the parameters of proper police procedure.

A non-law enforcement citizen is acting completely contrary to the law when they perform any violence, except an immediate act of self or others defense.
 
That statement is motived from emotionalism not from facts. When police go wrong it gets a lot of attention in the media. The difference is the police don’t go on a rampage, ignoring the facts of the case, claiming that all police everywhere are not getting justice when found guilty of committing a crime.

Let’s put it another way, blacks who were hanged on false charges in the 50’s or from mob rule didn’t get justice. Do blacks want to do the same to others merely because of the color of their skin? Isn’t that in direct contradiction to Martin Luther King, Jr.'s message that no one should be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character? Was that principle applied by the rabble rousers in Ferguson?

Michael Brown did not receive an injustice after he attacked a police officer in his squad car, and then he tried to wrestle the polic officer’s gun away from him. When he did that he set in motion the whole terrible affair. No one to blame but himself for his fate, poor young man. Why he did that is another question, but he did start the whole thing and kept it going until the officer had no choice but to shoot. That’s what officers are trained to do to protect themselves and the lives of others who might be hurt by a man determined to get a gun from him and shoot God knows who. That’s the facts here, plain and awful as they are.
 
It wasn’t the police who started rioting, looting, and burning down the businesses of people who had absolutely nothing to do with the tussle in Ferguson.
 
Odell said:
But do two wrongs make a right? Does it make it right to excuse sin or make vice virtue?
Click to expand...
The strange thing about our species is that we go to ridiculous lengths to rationalize madness and lunacy.
 
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