By Charles Pierce, Esquire

illary Clinton finally said something about recent events in Ferguson, Missouri. What she said appears to have been written by nine consultants, eight people from marketing, seven lawyers, six ESL valedictorians, and Mark Penn. She feels very bad about the stuff that happened, as stuff sometimes will happen, because it is stuff, and it happens. Or something.

This summer, the eyes of our country and indeed the world have been focused on one community in the middle of the American heartland, Ferguson, Missouri. Watching the recent funeral for Michael Brown, as a mother, as a human being, my heart just broke for his family, because losing a child is every parent’s greatest fear and an unimaginable loss. But I also grieve for that community and for many like it across our country. Behind the dramatic, terrible pictures on television, are deep challenges that will be with them and with us long after the cameras move on. This is what happens when the bonds of trust and respect that hold any community together fray. Nobody wants to see our streets look like a war zone, not in America. We are better than that. We saw our country’s true character in the community leaders that came out to protest peacefully and worked to restrain violence. The young people who insisted on having their voices heard and in the many decent and respectful law enforcement officers who showed what quality law enforcement looks like. Men and women who serve and protect their communities with courage and professionalism, who inspire trust, rather than fear. We need more of that, because we can do better.

What is our country’s “true character,” at least as it is defined by the people in authority, is a heavily militarized police force made up of trigger-happy yahoos who consider any black person a threat? Why isn’t that just as plausible an interpretation of recent events? Because America, fk yeah!? Try again.

We can’t ignore the inequities that persist in our justice system that undermine our most deeply held values of fairness and equality. Imagine what he with would feel and what we would do if white drivers were three times as likely to be searched by police during a traffic stop as black drivers. Instead of the other way around; if white offenders received prison sentences 10 percent longer than black offenders for the same crimes; if a third of all white men, just look at this room and take one-third, went to prison during their lifetime. Imagine that. That is the reality in the lives of so many of our fellow Americans and so many of the communities in which they live. I applaud President Obama for sending the attorney general to Ferguson and demanding a thorough and speedy investigation, to find out what happened, to see that justice is done, to help this community begin healing itself. We should all add our voices to those that have come together in recent days to work for peace, justice and reconciliation in Ferguson, and beyond, to stand against violence and for the values that we cherish. We can do better.

I don’t have to imagine it. I know it, because it is actually happening. Thank you for noticing.

We can work to rebuild the bonds of trust from the ground up. It starts within families and communities. It was 51 years ago today that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called us to live out true meaning of our creed, to make the dream real for all Americans. That mission is as fiercely urgent today as when he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the hot August sun all those years ago.

The fierce urgency of taking two weeks to say something is not what Dr. King was talking about, I do not believe.

So we have a lot of work to do together. At Nexenta, you say, better living for a better world. At the Clinton Foundation, we say, we’re all in this together. If you put those together, it comes out to a pretty good road map for the future. We need all of you, your energy and your efforts, your innovation, your building, your creating to help us achieve that better world.

Nicely done. Plug the corporation that paid for these banalities.

Mother Mary, I hope she can do better than this.