Flowers: Some issues aren't about race, yet still are black and white

MOVEMENTS ARE difficult to manage, because they're messy. Unlike weddings, which usually are planned to cover every detail, including which relatives get confined to social Siberia and what shade of hideous is forced upon the bridesmaids, social revolutions are unpredictable.

Take, for example, feminism. At the beginning, it all seemed fairly benign. Give us the vote, admit us to school, stop treating us as marital property or slightly demented Miss Havishams. Common decency, which some call equality, is what we demand. That's fine.

But then it became all about "my body" this and "your oppression" that, and frying up bacon while spritzing on Enjoli and making you feel like a man (assuming you identified as one).

Feminism became fetishism, where women needed to say all the right things and accept all the right principles (farewell, independent thought) and bow to the Uterine Goddess. What started out as a serious discussion of injustice and real grievance morphed into a narrative of finger pointing (sometimes at other, noncompliant sisters) and complaints about the patriarchy. Some of it was downright hilarious, like the idea you could wear a Band-Aid and three Kleenexes to a party and then act offended when the guys started salivating. (See that slut shaming I just did? Naughty me.)

The civil rights movement followed a similar trajectory. Real racism against black Americans, deeply evil injustice springing from the original sin of slavery was the justifiable source of anger and resolve, resulting in the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Affirmative Action and the creation of other laws and institutions to pay back, slowly, the debt owed to the children of slaves by the children of white privilege.

I mean what I just wrote. I am a beneficiary of my skin color, I know that. Not as much as my ancestors anymore. But it's there, I acknowledge it, and will give it proper consideration in what comes next.

Which is this: Why does the acquittal of a white cop, by a black judge, in a black man's death prompt another black man to tweet:

"The 'not guilty' verdict is also a reminder that the criminal justice system is not designed to yield justice for dead black bodies."

The author of those 132 characters was Marc Lamont Hill, a professor at Morehouse College well known to those of us in his hometown. Hill is outspoken about issues of race and criminal justice, so it's not surprising he'd have something to say about this week's acquittal of Officer Edward Nero in the death of Freddie Gray. It would be more surprising if he didn't.

And it's predictable that he'd criticize the system for what he and the Black Lives Matter folk believe is institutional racism. I say predictable, because anytime you have a discussion about race on social media these days, you're a fool if you expect subtlety and nuance. It's boring to examine the actual legal principles at play, inconvenient to mention that this was a bench trial with a black judge, troublesome to consider that a black prosecutor couldn't finish the job she promised to do: deliver the particular version of justice the "movement" apparently seeks: a conviction.

Of course, there are five more chances for a conviction, and three of them involve black officers. Perhaps the criminal justice system will provide justice on one of their backs. Hopefully, that will make the black lives that matter, and chatter, happy.

Maybe not, though. Only days before Nero was acquitted, a black body that did not get justice was at least given something, the Medal of Valor. Of course, as I noted in last week's column, it was an honor delivered posthumously to Sgt. Robert Wilson III, who showed extraordinary courage in a shootout with two criminals (and since we're talking color, let's mention that they, too, were black) and gave his life for the city we all love, Marc Lamont Hill included.

I know you'll say Wilson, for all of his valor, willingly assumed the risk of death. That's true. You'll also Gray was manhandled and mistreated during his arrest. That, too, might be true. But when color is the same on both sides, victim and hero, we should at least take a step back and realize that of the two deaths here, only one was caused by two armed criminals robbing a store, while the other was at most caused by officers who showed a callous disregard for a prisoner's welfare. In neither case should the color of the victims, or the victimizers, matter.

But we can't use common sense. That doesn't drive cable-show ratings, that doesn't sell papers, that doesn't allow shills for the culture wars to pontificate about this evil and unjust society.

Much like the fabrication by feminists of a campus rape culture, we are supposed to believe police officers are out to get young, black men, when the biggest threat to young black men is other young black men.

I said earlier in this piece that I'm aware of my white privilege. I'm also aware that this likely skews my vision in the same way Hill's influenced his. But that doesn't mean I have to acquiesce in some rueful fiction that Gray is dead because he was black. It doesn't mean that State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby is competent, but frustrated by a racist society. If doesn't mean Judge Barry Williams is an Uncle Tom, or perhaps an Uncle Clarence.

It means that sometimes, guilt or innocence is transparent, not black or white. No matter how many lamentations we hear from the Black Lives Matter movement, no matter how cognizant we white people are of our generational privilege, there is no justice to be had for black or white if innocent people are convicted as some psychic, symbolic payback.