Last night, CNN's Anderson Cooper interviewed the mothers of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Trayvon Martin, and Tamir Rice – all black males killed by white police, or by a "white Hispanic" neighborhood watchman.  (Clips are available here, here, and here.)  A preview article by Ray Sanchez sets the tone: "The mothers of these four unarmed black men and boys felled by bullets or excessive police force have no doubt their sons would still be alive if they were white.  No question, they say."

In their first interview together, Fulton was joined by Brown's mother, Lesley McSpadden; Tamir's mother, Samaria Rice; and Garner's mother, Gwen Carr. They spoke of reliving the horrific final moments of their son's lives with each controversial death, of gaining strength from protesters and other supporters, of the importance of coming together to effect change.

[snip]

"If Eric Garner was a white man in Suffolk County doing the same thing that he was doing – even if he would have been caught selling cigarettes that day – they would have given him a summons and he wouldn't have lost his life that day," [Carr] said. "I believe that 100 percent."

The short version is that this is not so much a matter of color as it is a matter of criminal behavior.  With the exception of Rice (and even Rice's behavior was suspicious, no matter how much bias outlets like the Washington Post pump into the story), all of those killed were committing crimes.  In Eric Garner's case, the crime was the result of a dumb law, but then again, he had been arrested previously 31 times – which information is buried deeper than Paul Revere's time capsule in almost every story that covered him.  And, barring objective physical disparities that cannot possibly be attributed to racism, a morbidly obese white man with sleep apnea is as susceptible to heart-attack as a black man in similar straits.

As for Brown and Martin, they were explicitly assaulting people in life-ending ways.  The evidence in both cases shows this strongly.

So, contra these moms, the relevant advice here applies to people of all colors: if you do not want to get shot, don't wave a real-looking gun around.  Don't try to beat people to death.  Don't try to yank policemen's guns out of their hands.

As long as we're speculating, look at the last names: only one mother's matches her son's.  The rate of fatherlessness and broken families in the black community is so large as to be insane.  (Not unrelated, the rate at which black babies are killed in utero is astronomical.)  This article lays out the myriad bad consequences of children having no father in the home, including increased likelihood of behavioral disorders, anger problems, drug abuse, imprisonment, and even becoming a rapist.  In other words, fatherlessness is strongly correlated with mental instability and criminal behavior, which are strongly correlated with getting shot by the police.  So should Carr, et al. ask whether their children would still be alive if their fathers were white? 

Top: Gwen Carr, left, and Leslie McSpadden, right.
Bottom: Samaria Rice, left, and Sybrina Fulton, right.

If these mothers want to critique the justice system in their respective states, let them explain exactly what they disagree with in each case.  Let Fulton dispute the forensic evidence, or McSpadden dissect the witness testimonies.  Are the black witnesses who corroborated Darren Wilson's account of the Michael Brown shooting also racist?  How about the ones who flat-out lied to the grand jury?

One can understand the grief of a mother over her slain son.  Maybe one can even understand a group of mothers coming together to grieve very publicly, to people they know will spread their words far and wide.  But the line gets crossed when these women spray flagrant race-baiting fuel on an already way too combustible (in CNN's own words!) "raging national conversation."

"It's not happening to them," Fulton said, referring to supporters of George Zimmerman, who used deadly force to stop Trayvon Martin from banging his head into concrete, "so they don't quite get it."  One hopes that more women will not have the opportunity to "get it," but Fulton's and the others' incendiary comments have the potential to get other mothers' sons – of all colors – killed.

Drew Belsky is American Thinker's deputy editor.  Contact him at drew@americanthinker.com, and follow him on Twitter @DJB627.