How Ferguson could be America's future

KPRC-TV / CNN ^ | August 23, 2014 | John Blake, CNN

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From questions about democracy to positives coming from conflict, social scientists offer different takes.

The protests in Ferguson, Missouri, have been described as a mirror into contemporary America, but they are also something else: A crystal ball.

Look past the headlines -- the debates over race and police militarization that have surfaced after the killing of an unarmed black youth by a white police officer -- and one can glimpse America's future, some historians and political scientists say.

No one is talking about an impending race war or a police state, but something more subtle. Unless Americans re-examine some assumptions they've made about themselves, they argue, Ferguson could be the future.

Assumption No. 1: Tiger Woods is going to save us

It's called the "browning of America." Google the phrase and you'll get 18 million hits. By 2050, most of the nation's citizens are expected to be people of color, according to the Pew Research Center.

Dig beneath the Google links and one can detect an emerging assumption: Racial flashpoints like Ferguson will fade in the future because no single race will be dominant. You could call it the Tiger Woods effect. The New American will claim multiple racial origins like Woods, the pro golfer. Demographic change will accomplish what a thousand national conversations on race could never do: lessen the sting of racial conflict.

A dramatic increase in interracial marriages will change the racial landscape as more people cross racial and ethnic lines to marry. But that change won't be a cure-all, says Rory Kramer, a sociology and criminology professor at Villanova University in Pennsylvania.

He says racial progress is not inevitable with the browning of America.

"I don't want to deny the optimism," Kramer says. "I deny the assumption that it will happen without effort."(continued)

[sergeantdave]

I’m leaning more toward ta future of an American Nuremberg tribunal where democrat seditionists and RINO traitors are brought before the bench and sentenced to hang by the neck until dead.

[CorporateStepsister]

Look, much of this is choice.

As kids, we’re told until the people telling us are blue in the face. The smart ones choose to listen and become realists. The stupid ones live in fairyland and make a mess of their lives.

At this point in time, people avoid blacks not out of bigotry, but for the same reason that most avoid an unstable ex-girlfriend/wife and are tired of walking on eggshells.

[trebb]

The meme that Blacks, killed by those defending themselves from said Blacks, are victims of racist murder will be what evolves to the greatest degree. We will get more Trayvons and Michaels, who think they have the right to attack others and they will be come more numerous and belligerent. At some point, the blow-back will result in more of them laying in puddles of their own blood as folks smarten up and stop being victims to the thuggery. It may be what ignites CWII because the lawlessness and corruption of “those who lord over us” certainly hasn’t produced anything but a lot of rants.

[JLAGRAYFOX]

I agree with 100%!!! Most African-Americans have chosen to live a life stlye that is not tied to the strength of family!!! They also follow, like blind sheep, leaders who only use and abuse them!!! They are a failed segment of society with their high crime rates, out-of-wedlock children, few fathers in the home, Black on Black crime....shucks...what do you expect??? And.......yet they blame all others for their self-generated, low esteem station in civilized society!!! Go figure!!! it’s not “Whitey”, it’s not American culture, it’s the reflection that comes from them looking in the mirror!!! Adrift-at-sea with themselves and leaders like Obama and Sharpton!!! Hopeless!!!