Ferguson — a “Yes, but” Story
Most everyone seems to know what to think about Ferguson. I don’t.
It’s one of those “yes, but” stories—in which every assertion about it is answered with a “yes, but” that, if not exactly the opposite, is meant to blunt the initial assertion. “Yes he was stoned and punched the cop in the face and went for his gun (maybe), but he didn’t get his gun and he fled and the cop could have waited for help instead of shooting him.” Or, “Yes, it is a tragedy and race might have been a factor, but we can’t ask cops to protect us from dangerous people and then threaten them with prison if things go badly.” Yes, but. Yes, but. (And our President—a big fan of “yes, but”—leads the chorus.)
What’s clear is that most people already knew what they thought about this story before it happened. The witnesses who made things up already knew. So did the people who passed it off as a young thug getting what he deserved.
The reason they knew is that we live and react to life out of our master stories. A master story is one that explains the world to you–and your experience in it. When things get painful or confusing or threatening, we return to our master stories because they offer solace and an explanation. Each of us has a constellation of master stories—political, historical, religious, personal—that explain things to us. (The centrality of narrative being one of my own master stories.)
So one person’s master story tells them America is a racist nation and it, once again, did to Michael Brown what racist societies do to racial minorities. And another person’s master story says America is a free country—for everyone who plays by the rules—and that good behavior is rewarded and bad behavior is self-punishing. Or something like that. These are gatekeeper stories that determine what weight to give to various pieces of evidence and even what counts as a fact. And so these master stories collide in a place like Ferguson, which could be any place, and we talk and talk and talk about it—and it’s all yes, but.
I don’t offer the above with a cynical shrug. I’m not relativistic about stories. Some are truer and more helpful than others. I believe that when two stories collide—whether in Ferguson or Palestine or within our own family—we are required to try to look hard for a third story that contains the core truths of each. I think such a story about Ferguson would start by acknowledging how stunned we are at what can and has been lost in just a few seconds—a life, two futures, the sense that we are brothers and sisters (or at least a community) who are in something together. All gone.
Some of it can be put back together. Some of it can’t. This is not the way the world is supposed to be. We can only nudge it back in that direction by being willing to question our master stories and to look together for ones that we all can live with.