In 2011 a British author, E. L. James, self-published an erotic romance novel entitled Fifty Shades of Grey. Salman Rushdie’s take on the book: “I’ve never read anything so badly written that got published. It made Twilight look like War and Peace.” Maureen Dowd of the New York Times described the book as being written “like a Brontë devoid of talent.”

The reading public didn’t listen. The book topped the best seller list around the world, was translated into 52 languages and set a record in the United Kingdom as the fastest selling paperback of all time. The first book was followed by publication of the second and third volumes, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. By 2017, the trilogy had sold over 150 million copies worldwide. The books are notable for their explicitly erotic scenes including bondage and domination/submission. Predictably, Hollywood produced film adaptations which were thoroughly panned but were box office successes.

In a world where Kim Kardashian has 200 million Instagram followers and where sex always sells, it should be no surprise that the books and movies were smash hits.

But how many shades of grey are there? I suspect that there are far less than 50 but, nevertheless, we live in a grey world although we often pretend that is black and white.

The color grey is produced by mixing equal amounts of black and white paint. Anyone who listens to the daily news will not be surprised by the coverage given to the shootings of black people by white people, often police officers. In many cases, there is no reasonable defense to these killings.

The most prominent was the death of George Floyd which really ignited the Black Lives Matter movement which had been simmering for a number of years. A generation ago, the lyrics of a popular song said “that the revolution would not be televised.” In the George Floyd case, it was televised and the “television” consisted of a nine minute video recorded on numerous cell phones. The jury outcome was not a surprise although it appears that the verdict may be overturned because one juror did not answer his questionnaire truthfully. I don’t expect further proceedings to result in a different outcome and ex-police officer, Derek Chauvin, is likely to spend many years in prison.

While the Floyd trial was in progress, another Black man, Daunte Wright, was killed by a white police officer, Kim Potter, who said that she thought she was using her Taser and not her gun. Many found that hard to believe as the Taser has a grip completely unlike the police pistol and is drawn from an officer’s left side as opposed to the pistol on the right. However, she is heard just after the shooting expressing anguish that she had used her pistol. Clear or unclear or, maybe, a shade of gray.

On the day the Floyd verdict was delivered, there was another killing by a white officer of a Black female teenager in Columbus, Ohio.  Ma’Khia Bryant was shot as she was about to knife another girl whom she had pinned against car. For anyone who has seen the video, the evidence is clear that her shooting saved another teenager from being stabbed and possibly becoming a murder victim as shown in the picture below.

But what is interesting about all three cases is the reaction reported by the media. In the Bryant case, United States Senators Cory Booker and Raphael Warnock said that the shooting demonstrated the “need for police reform.” Valerie Jarrett, the Senior Adviser to President Obama, tweeted that a teenager had been shot multiple times to break up a “knife fight” and she demanded accountability. Apparently, in her view of the world, a knife fight is no big thing. Ms. Jarrett should get off her Twitter perch and ask the girl about to be stabbed her thoughts on the seriousness of this particular knife fight.

There is more than sufficient anecdotal evidence that black people can be more roughly treated by police. However, that does not mean that, in most cases, the treatment is either rough or inappropriate.

George Floyd was being arrested for passing a counterfeit bill. The call was appropriate; the response not.

Daunte Wright was pulled over for expired tags when it was discovered that he had an outstanding warrant. The stop proper; the outcome not, but likely an accident rather than intentional.

In Ma’Khia Bryant’s case, the call and response were proper.

Unfortunately, all three cases are lumped together by activists who are more interested in pursuing an agenda than seeking individual justice.

The case of Daunte Wright is an object lesson.

For Daunte’s adherents, the case for murder is clear. He was “driving while black” and stopped for expired tags and it was discovered that he had an air freshener on his rearview mirror which happens to be a violation under Minnesota law. He was on the phone to his mother when he was shot. According to the Rev. Al Sharpton: “you can die for having expired tags….It wouldn’t happen in any other community.”

The opposite view: It wasn’t the air freshener; it was the discovery that Wright was wanted on an outstanding warrant for fleeing police with an illegal firearm and for skipping bail on an armed robbery charge. Wright was outside the car about to be handcuffed but broke free back to the car when Officer Potter shouted “I’ll tase you” and then “Taser, Taser, Taser” but discharged her gun.

Former officer Kim Potter has been charged with second degree manslaughter which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years. That is not enough for the activists; they demand more serious murder charges and the demands became so personal and threatening that the prosecutor removed himself from the case which now rests with the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office which also prosecuted the George Floyd case.

I, for one, believe Kim Potter is telling the truth. That does not mean that she should not be charged with negligent manslaughter but it does mean that this was not an intentional murder. Unlike the activists, I think this is a perfect example of the way things happen in a “grey” world and that those who say “here we go again” are not seeking real justice but are pushing a false narrative. As Alfred Lord Tennyson said: “A lie that is half-truth is the darkest of all lies.” This is particularly true when it stirs racial animosities.

One of the more unfortunate aspect of these cases is the television presence of the Reverend Al Sharpton who is the master of the “half-truth.” He has considerable rhetorical abilities and a true gift for hogging the klieg lights when the cameras are rolling. His “half-truth” in the Daunte Wright case is that a black man was murdered because of expired plates and an air freshener. Sharpton has come a long way from the 1980s when he engaged in outright fabrications and he has honed his ability to mislead with “half-truths” rather than complete lies which spectacularly backfired on him 40 years ago.

For those who are not familiar with his history, it began in the 1980s with the case of Tawanna Brawley. Brawley maintained that she had been abducted and sexually violated by six white men, one of whom was a police officer. She was found with fecal matter on her and racial epithets written on her body in charcoal. Her case became a national story due to the efforts of the Reverend Sharpton and a few others. Initially, there was widespread sympathy for Brawley but the tide turned when, after an extensive grand jury investigation, it was determined that the story had been made up and was not true. Sharpton (and three others including Brawley) were ordered to pay significant damages for defamation.

I am sure it has not been lost on Sharpton that, with the many millions of dollars being paid to the Floyd and Wright families, they might be called upon to make contributions to his national efforts. God knows that he needs money. According to the New York Times, he was in default of federal and state taxes a few years ago to the tune of $4.5 million.

This false narrative is not limited to Sharpton. Indeed, every white Minnesota politician including the Governor and a United States Senator are in Twitter lockstep in suggesting that this is a case of “here we go again” where a black man is killed by a white police officer. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz tweeted that this was “… another life of a Black man taken by law enforcement.” Minnesota United States Senator Tina Smith tweeted the exact same message.

The prize for the most inane tweet goes to Minnesota Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan who declared “Minnesota is a place where it is not safe to be Black.” Presumably, all Minnesota black men should move to Iowa where things will be “hunky-dory.”

Nowhere is there an appreciation of the nuances of this particular case or any recognition of what plainly is a tragic accident. The national media has fallen in line in promulgating this false narrative.

Much remains to be done to continue to ameliorate America’s original sin of slavery and much that followed. Nevertheless, we will only get there by telling the “truth” about events in this “grey” world and by calling out “half-truths.”

The truth probably is that, if Daunte Wright were white, he would have suffered the same fate. Anyone who is resisting arrest and attempting to flee with an outstanding warrant for doing the same thing before would have been “tased” as well and the same accident would have occurred.

We do a profound disservice to our fellow black citizens in continuing to assert that they are sitting ducks for police officers and that white citizens don’t care.