Racism or arrogance or both?

It’s been captivating watching America take to the streets to voice outrage at the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown at the hands of their local police; black men killed by white cops.

While the Brown incident leaves room for speculation, the Garner incident has Americans more in unison about police excessiveness.

The death of Tamir Rice in Cleveland has been occasionally enjoined as well, and it’s probably the most tragic and questionable of the three deaths. If and when his death is discovered by CNN or Internet activists, I think it will echo more like Garner than Brown.

Front and center in the outrage is racism and the plight of black men vs. white authority. That issue will continue to get spliced and nuanced, and likely never resolved.

The incidents to me display another troubling theme of authority that I think is riding a decades-long wave:

Institutional arrogance.

I think in many pockets of our society — from the bankers on Wall Street, to the elite athletes in our stadiums, to the CEOs in our corporations — we’re infected with an excess of arrogance. As we Tweet, post and selfie our way through life, there seems to be a growing projection of “me” that I’m not sure is healthy. I’m nervous the wave won’t subside too soon.

When amok, it’s a problem in our lives, to be sure.

But in government, arrogance is an immense threat, given the power, access, dollars, resources and more.

When I see the Garner video, something stands out for me in addition to black-vs.-white.

I see arrogance of power that overwhelmed any chance for logic and reality.

Six men perpetrated a frat-boy gang tackle on a single person and persisted in an aggressive manner for several minutes, and did not let up despite the pleas.

Garner was certainly guilty of resisting arrest. But he had no weapon, showed no weapon, punched no person, was no threat to run given his size, and his “crime” was selling loose cigarettes.

Certainly not all of the police present can be racist enough to ride out a fatality. But all of them can be galvanized enough in their authority to ride their process through regardless of Garner’s realities.

It’s arrogance, and these days, it flows too much across much of government, not just police.

The same week the Garner saga exploded onto America’s streets, President Obama dispatched to thorny Hungary a new ambassador who produced soap operas. And to Argentina, he sent a guy who speaks no Spanish. They were donors, not diplomats. Yet off they were sent.

That same week on the local level, the Youngstown Police Department was accused of letting a person out of a DUI who was connected to someone in the department. The arrogance of that move has been furthered by a police boss who danced and shuffled around it in Week 1, and, in Week 2, let it sit in internal affairs.

The YPD incident is actually a chance to show we’re not completely engulfed in government arrogance.

YPD Chief Robin Lees has been on the job not yet a year. So, too, was Mahoning County Sheriff Jerry Greene when he faced his first internal strife in 2013 when his staff let county Auditor Mike Sciortino out of a DUI.

Out of equal parts embarrassment and ethics, Greene dispatched the investigation to outside law-enforcement officials. Two weeks into Lees’ first such public embarrassment, his issue remains an internal YPD matter.

It’s important to note that leaks on the YPD issue have come from outside and inside Lees’ department. So not everyone in the YPD is blind to the ethical dilemma he has at hand.

But he’s appeared blind to the appearance of an impropriety. As we are now in Week 3 of his “investigation,” imagine for a moment that you are accused by the YPD of a crime. Are they going to arrest you now and place you in cuffs, or are they going to spend three weeks wringing their hands about how this affects you and your otherwise good record?

Is there a better definition of “arrogance?”

CNN just finished a great series called “Ivory Tower” that looked at the skyrocketing costs of college education. They profiled Cooper Union, a university in NYC that, since its 1859 founding has been free to students via an endowment. Its current leadership, believing they know better than its founders, became the first board in the school’s history to charge tuition. Necessary or arrogance? Find the program and judge for yourself. It’s captivating.

What I find especially grating in the Ferguson, New York and Cleveland cases — and even in the YPD case — is the arrogance that the local investigators believe they are best to lead an investigation into their own abuses.

These are the same government agencies who run to outside arbitrators to settle salary disagreements.

But when their local citizens are potentially abused at the hands of their own protectors, outside eyes are unnecessary.

Arrogance.

Todd Franko is editor of The Vindicator. He likes emails about stories and our newspaper. Email him at tfranko@vindy.com. He blogs, too, on vindy.com. Tweet him, too, at @tfranko.