By 
The Ferguson, Missouri debacle has given all of America a black eye. Black in its most literal sense and not in a derogatory manner. A black eye especially for the handful of elected officials involved in the crisis this week.Foreign governments, through their controlled newspapers, radio and television stations, are blaming American elected officials at every level of government for the current unrest in the small city of Ferguson, a suburb of St. Louis, MO, population 21,203.
The worldwide editorial comments suggest the Ferguson crisis will directly impact near-future re-elections of numerous government officials.
Ferguson's population is 67.4 percent black, 29.3 percent white with the balance composed of other racial categories. Of the 54 fulltime officers in the Ferguson police department, 50 are white; four are African Americans.
The foreign media especially chastises President Barack Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, St. Louis County Prosecutor Bob McCullough and Ferguson Mayor James Knowles for failing to calm rioters since a Grand Jury announcement Monday night, Aug. 24.
The Grand Jury, made up of nine white members and three African Americans, ruled Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown Jr. in self defense on Aug. 9 on a city street in Ferguson. Brown was walking home with a friend when the alleged altercation began.
Wilson, 28, white, stands six-foot-four and weighs 210 pounds. Brown, 18, African America, is also six-four and weighs 290 pounds, according to a Ferguson police report of the incident.
In the newest development, Wilson resigned from the force after he and Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson received death threats in the mail and over the phone. Wilson was with the force for six years.
Spokespersons among the rioters tell reporters the violent protests, arson and looting of local stores began the night of Aug. 24 because they had wanted the prosecutor to initially charge the police officer with a crime and then call for a regular trial so that the public could view the evidence and decide for itself if a homicide charge should or should not be brought against the officer.
Instead, prosecutor McCullough presented all the evidence, as he saw it, to the jurors. Grand Jury hearings are secret.
The Ferguson trouble was worldwide news. Some foreign publications were treating the Ferguson mess as another conventional war zone. An estimated 500 reporters and television crews from major European cities are in Ferguson covering the crisis.
About 100 arrests have been made so far, half on felony charges. The rioters destroyed 21 buildings and torched 10 police cars. Some reporters claim they were held up and robbed during the rioting.
By Friday, Nov. 28, however, Ferguson police and Gov. Nixon said a reduced number protesters were still evident but the looting and damage to buildings and police property had stopped.
At one point, Gov. Nixon had 2,000 National Guardsmen ringing the city and deployed in the riot areas. Simultaneous protests, some not as violent as those in Ferguson, also broke out in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis and Los Angeles where numerous arrests were also made.
A German centrist news site, Zeit Online, commented that "the situation of African Americans has barely improved since Martin Luther King." King was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, TN.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of the biggest newspapers in Germany, directly faulted President Barack Obama for failing to stop the Ferguson turmoil. The paper said "it seems like (a) mockery that (Obama) is still called the most powerful man on earth."Le Figaro of Paris focused "on the excessive militarization of the police forces" in Ferguson and throughout the U.S. "The Michael Brown affair reminds (us) of the long road that remains ahead to abolish the racial barrier that still divides the U.S.," the paper wrote.
Then the newspaper abruptly changed course and predicted the American Republican Party will feel the impact of the Ferguson troubles "and (may) even cost the GOP the next presidential election."
El Mundo, a right-wing Spanish newspaper, directly blames Obama for not quickly putting out the fire in Ferguson. Obama's "words of peace and reconciliation are perceived by many activists as inadequate and almost treason to a situation (Ferguson) they see as a direct result of slavery and racial segregation laws that were in force until 1965."
In Canada, the Globe and Mail in Toronto, editorialized and gloated, "The sad events in the St. Louis suburb (Ferguson) gives us the opportunity to ponder how we do things differently and to realize how comparatively well things work here."
In Turkey, a number of newspapers, in front-page displays, likened the Ferguson situation to Turkey's own anti-government Gezi Park protests that began last year.
In Russia, Ferguson was a major daily news story. All Russian media accused the U.S. of being a hypocrite with a capital H. Russia Today, a state-funded, English-language news network, covered the riots extensively, almost as if it was occurring in their own homeland.
China was jubilant. The state-owned news agency Xinhua editorialized that America's racial problems is "a deep-rooted disease." The agency couldn't resist punching the U.S. in the nose with this conclusion: "Obviously, what the Unites States needs to do is to concentrate on solving its own problems rather than always pointing fingers at others."
Iran, too, couldn't have been happier. State-owned and operated media in that country is covering Ferguson prominently. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's 85-year-old supreme leader, chastised the U.S. on Twitter for its race relations predicament, especially now in Ferguson.
The Guardian, that venerable London newspaper, crowed that Michael Brown is one in a long list of victims of racial prejudice in the U.S. "Such things do not happen to unarmed young white men," The Guardian wrote.
Also in the United Kingdom, The Independent newspaper argues the Ferguson protests were "an explosion waiting to happen." The paper pointed to "a disproportionate number of arrests of young black men (in Ferguson) and an under-representation of blacks" in Ferguson's police force.
El Pais in Spain maintains the Ferguson racial problem "with variations, is repeated unequally across the geography of the United States."
In Mexico, La Jornada, a left-leaning newspaper, makes no bones about who is to blame for the Ferguson situation getting out of control. The paper faults Obama for not acting on the issue early in his first term.
"Although our neighboring country abolished segregationist laws that prevailed until after the middle of the 20th century, the U.S. remains structurally a racist society," La Jornada argues. "This is reflected not only in the political and institutional under-representation of minorities, but also in labor, police and judicial practices."
