The tragedy that is Ferguson now distills to this: To vindicate the civil rights of one man, Michael Brown, that were allegedly violated, the civil rights of another, Darren Wilson, should have been definitely infringed.
To be sure, despite its apparent justification, there is little to celebrate in the decision not to indict Officer Wilson. Whether his actions were warranted has probably forever vanished into a fog of mixed evidence and ambiguous testimony. The profound culture of mistrust between African-Americans and police in Ferguson—as elsewhere—reflects a deep and continuing racial divide that cannot be wished or refuted away. Frustrations so deep generally do not arise from nothing.