Keep telling yourself that, guys.

Via Salon:

… Zoller Seitz’s story lays bare a reality that we have seen play out over and over again: A white person can get away with a lot if they claim that they were scared of a person of color. White people and law enforcement are allowed to fear for their lives — even if that so-called fear is based on racist perceptions about black and brown criminality or, more often, nothing at all.

A grand jury was seated on Wednesday to consider the circumstances surrounding the killing of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager who was shot six times by Darren Wilson, a white cop. If the case eventually goes to court, no doubt one of the questions that will be put before the jury is whether Wilson could have reasonably feared for his life during his confrontation with Brown. While witnesses to the shooting have indicated that Brown had his hands up in surrender when he was fatally shot, others — mostly other cops — have suggested that Brown charged at Wilson and that the “genesis of [the shooting] was a physical confrontation.” […]

Brown’s friend Dorian Johnson, who was with Brown at the time he was killed, told MSNBC that the police instigated the confrontation. That they were just walking in the street, and almost home when Wilson approached. “I saw the barrel of the gun pointed at my friend,” he said. “Then I saw the fire come out of the barrel.”

Johnson said he feared for his life. There’s no reason to doubt that Brown felt the same way. But are teens like Johnson and Brown allowed to fear for their lives? And who poses a more credible threat? A teenager allegedly armed with a lifted pack of cigarillos or a cop with a gun and a willingness to use deadly force? It seems we are offered the answer to such questions with an alarming frequency. And with the outcome of this week’s grand jury hearing on Wilson’s decision to shoot and kill an unarmed teen looming, Brown’s parents, the residents of Ferguson and the rest of the nation prepare themselves to have that question answered once again.