Ethical experiences within Ferguson Officials Arent Telling You What Happened

to Mike Brown
I think the two most prominent ethical experiences within the article, but more
broadly within the Mike Browns story, are The Beggar and The Intolerable.
When considering Mike Browns story and the actions leading towards his death,
there comes a moment of realization where one suddenly realizes Darren Wilson must
have looked right into Mike Browns face as before he shot him. According to the
autopsy report, the bullets that killed the teenager, two to the skull out of six shot in
total, entered the head at the downward angle, meaning Brown must have been at a
lower height than Wilson at the time of his death. Brown, who was over six feet tall,
could only have been beneath Wilson were he kneeling, most likely in surrender and out
of a fear or being shot. Eyewitnesses state that Brown had his hands up and pleaded to
Wilson: I dont have a gun, stop shooting!
Darren Wilson must have looked Mike Brown in the face, the face of a teenage
boy going off to university in a months time and who was described as both gentle and
shy, and saw the pleading look in his eyes as he begged not to be shot. Still, Wilson
made the decision to continue firing at the teenager. Though one might expect that
looking into Browns face would elicit an immediate response of compassion for the
teenager, Wilson may well has decided to suppress that compassion and instead
choose to shoot him. This correlates with the ethical experience of The Beggar, where
the face of another human immediately evokes a response when looked at. It it then up
to the observer to make the choice of acting in a helpful/moral way or ignoring the
impulse to assist for other reasons (ie. safety or otherwise).
On the opposite side of this situation there sits the people of Ferguson, primarily
the black community within the town that was banded together in solidarity in the wake
of Mike Browns death. Together the town has begun to live out the ethical experience
of The Intolerableseeing an extreme injustice and being called to respond and right
the wrong. The intolerable act/situation in the case has been the murder of Mike Brown
and since his death, the community has begun to raise funds in order to assist the
Brown family in paying for their sons funeral and have spearheaded a campaign which
would, if enacted, make body cameras on police uniforms the law. As a community,
Ferguson has chosen to continue the fight started by the civil rights movement in the
1960s and change the way the police force operates so there may never be another
black child murdered by a police officer in an act of racial discrimination.