Ferguson, Racism and the STL

Ferguson, Racism and the STL 3 weeks ago 18 y/o Michael Brown was killed by a Ferguson, MO policeman. Like other black men who have been victimized by the police, Brown was ordered to quit doing what he was doing (walking down the middle of the street), and didn't comply immediately. There are mixed accounts about what happened next, including those who said that Brown hit the officer in the face, and others who said the officer shot Brown once while they struggled inside the open window of the patrol car. What happened next was not disputed. The officer shot Brown a total of 6 times while he was in the street, by some eyewitness reports Brown had his hands in the air while the officer shot him. The young man's body lay in the street uncovered in the hot St. Louis sun while police conducted an investigation for 4 hours. The officer was initially at the scene, but was whisked away soon after and hasn't been seen or heard from since. The Ferguson and St. Louis community reacted immediately. Protests began that day, and residents of the area where Brown was killed called for justice for the gentle young man who had been visiting his grandmother that day. Those protests turned violent that first week, resulting in rioting, burning of a local gas station, and looting of area stores - some outside the immediate area. The incident has completely polarized the St. Louis community. Protests went from being chaotic to more reasonable after clergy and leaders in the black community came together to bring reason and calm. Journalists from all over the world came to chronicle events happening in Ferguson's streets, while local and state politicians varied greatly in their response holding fingers in the wind to determine how their actions might be judged by the local electorate. The eyes of the world turned toward the small suburb outside St. Louis amid the protests and circumstances surrounding the death of a young man who dared to walk down the middle of the street on a warm summer weekend afternoon. As a member of this community who has lived in the city of St. Louis for more than 30 years, I've observed many circumstances where police have hassled young black men. What is it that strikes fear into the heart of white people about young black men walking down the street? While I believe you need to be smart about living in an urban area, why does it have to be that persons of color make us fearful? Our segregation has created a two-tiered society. We've given white candidates better opportunities for higher paying jobs, we've kept them from purchasing homes in 'white' neighborhoods. We don't associate with black people - we're not comfortable around them. We might work with black colleagues with whom we feel comfortable from 8-5, but we don't invite them for dinner or welcome their families into our homes. When white people talk about their one black friend, they have to identify them in conversation as their black friend because the fact that they have a friend of color marks them as open-minded. The city's north side is largely black and predominantly run down. A real estate mogul has been allowed to purchase acres of north-side properties and has allowed them to fall into significant disrepair. No one wants to live next door to a condemned property that attracts vagrants, rodents and decay. While there are pockets of north city that are viable, 60-70% is not. Political legend says that a long-term mayor in the 80's plotted to encourage this decay in order to build the southside neighborhoods. The city's south side 30 years ago was predominantly white. Over those years many neighborhoods became mixed, and other predominantly black. Still others remain lily white - these are the neighborhoods where the white police officers live. Taking a basketball team with black players on it into the gyms of those areas in the '90's resulted in all the black players fouling out immediately. This is the most deep-seatedly racist area of St. Louis. Not exclusively in a way that's overt, but in a way that these are people who are really uncomfortable about living around people who don't look like them. They don't get how to act around non-white people. It makes them nervous, but they know people who are black - work with them, interact with the black members of the city who talk the way they do, and think the way they do. They're different. But the 18 year-olds who hang out at the McDonalds? They make them nervous. What are they doing in our neighborhood? What are they UP to?? Then there are the real racists. And this is pervasive in many of these far south neighborhoods. They talk in code - northside = black, southside = white. The good news is that I sincerely believe that these people are much more in the minority than they were 30 years ago. I think the young people (late 20's and early 30's) are outnumbering the racists in our community. And it couldn't happen soon enough. So what do we do now? Dialogue is good. There's lots of that going on, and it needs to continue. But to defeat institutional racism we need to do more than talk about it. We need to set goals about integrating police forces, fire departments and city offices. Police need training about how to handle people who are different than themselves. They need to be demilitarized and community-centric. We each need to take responsibility for defeating racism in our communities by being vocal and deliberate. I'm in!