Ferguson conflict - What is the problem, and how to solve it?

[MigL]

No apology needed Ten oz.

Like I have previously stated, I enjoy discussion, the more passionate the better.

Its always been civil. We've never stooped to insults/name calling ( well OK, maybe a few times under my breath as I was typing ).

I'm just 'expanding' into other areas of the forum, and maybe sometimes I take a controversial viewpoint to generate discussion.

[CharonY]

I'm looking at the incarceration rates chart ( first set ) that iNow posted ( post #79 ) . The time span is 1960-2010. Black American incarceration numbers increase steadily to about 2000 ( peak ), then decline.

 

Ah I see. I believe that for that demographic one possible explanation (but I do not recall a specific study that would strengthen that) is that there was a shift in mandatory drug sentences (potentially also the crack vs cocaine thingy, but I am not sure about the timeline). But that is only speculation on my behalf.

[Essay]

Ah I see. I believe that for that demographic one possible explanation (but I do not recall a specific study that would strengthen that) is that there was a shift in mandatory drug sentences (potentially also the crack vs cocaine thingy, but I am not sure about the timeline). But that is only speculation on my behalf.

...may also reflect the rapid rise in for-profit "diversionary" programs, which began around 2000.

[overtone]

Two factors that hit 1998 - 2005: 1) TWAT buildup took a lot of unemployed low-skill young men off the streets, and put them into the military or contract support jobs or vacated jobs stateside. 2) the first generation of inner city kids to grow up after the phaseout of leaded gasoline hit their peak crime years - childhood lead exposure is strongly correlated with poor impulse control in early adulthood, including aggression in males.

 

 

 

And for what it's worth? Missouri is a state that is not part of the South. Racism exists everywhere in the US.

St Louis and surrounding suburbs has often been chosen to illustrate the existence of racism and its effects, by authors and analysts in the US. The school system in East St Louis, for instance, here: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/education/state-tries-to-right-east-st-louis-school-district/article_1d0fcb15-78a6-50e2-8f6f-bb6de23e534c.html has been the poster child for modern structural racism in the US in several accounts ( for example: careful tax zoning has provided District 189 with a property tax base of low income black people's housing, while the nearby large industrial operations polluting the area pay their millions in property taxes to white people's schools farther away). That's Illinois, but same deal.

 

Missouri may not be part of the "South", but it was admitted to the Union as a slave State; its first proposed State Constitution forbade "free negroes and mulattoes" from residing in the State. When I was last through the State just a few years back I passed a town whose "sundown" sign had been removed only a couple years before that, within the 21st Century, an event remarked upon with sly import by a local at the truckstop.

 

Look up "sundown towns", if you're curious - that one was well north of Saint Louis. I wouldn't be surprised if Ferguson or a nearby town had been a sundown town at some point in its history. Something to remember when locals tell you that the segregation you see in such places is "voluntary".

[Ten oz]

@ overtone, I am not entirely sure what you are implying? It appears the leaded gasoline comment in relationship to impulse control implies that youth in Ferguson may be more prone to violence. Then you also bring racial segregation into the conversation implying unfair mistreatment of the community. I think these are rather conflicting ideas to some extent. As many of those who engage in bias treatment based on race/economics would surely use poor impulse control and propensity towards violence in those communities as a justification for any negative treatment.

[Willie71]

The situation in Ferguson is a perfect example of what happens to a community that is disenfranchised and becomes hopeless.

 

The police are militarized, and there are well known inequities in the treatment of blacks and whites.

 

Poverty, substance abuse, and crime are all social norms.

 

People outside of the area dehumanize the residents, and see them as deserving of what they get. This view has been fed by the right wing propaganda for a few terms before Obama was elected. The belief that these people get what they deserve is so entrenched that they believe the investigation into the police corruption and abuse of power is simply a way for activists to make money, not because there are real problems.

 

The way the police handled the protests is the best way to incite a riot. Its like they did it on purpose. I have a hard time thinking they could have "accidentally" been so incompetent to get the recipe right for violence.

 

Could you imagine living in a place where your rights are violated, you are held illegally, assaulted by police, and reporting it either did nothing, or resulted in more abuse? With no options, what do you do?

 

Ferguson is EXACTLY what one would expect it to be, based on the conditions at play. There is nothing wrong with the citizens, they are completely normal, and show normal reactions to social injustice.

[zapatos]

 

Look up "sundown towns", if you're curious - that one was well north of Saint Louis. I wouldn't be surprised if Ferguson or a nearby town had been a sundown town at some point in its history. Something to remember when locals tell you that the segregation you see in such places is "voluntary".

 

Your implication is that we locals are lying to you when we say segregation in places such as Ferguson is "voluntary".

Do you have any evidence to go with your implication?

 

The way the police handled the protests is the best way to incite a riot. Its like they did it on purpose. I have a hard time thinking they could have "accidentally" been so incompetent to get the recipe right for violence.

 

 

 

Don't forget that there was also plenty of rioting going on when the police stayed away. I believe the riots were going to happen regardless of police presence.

[Willie71]

 

Your implication is that we locals are lying to you when we say segregation in places such as Ferguson is "voluntary".

Do you have any evidence to go with your implication?

 

Don't forget that there was also plenty of rioting going on when the police stayed away. I believe the riots were going to happen regardless of police presence.

 

I don't agree with this. Ferguson settled down once a more reasonable police presence was provided.

 

The Ferguson police tactics were especially inappropriate, and violated a number of constitutional and human rights.

 

https://timedotcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/ferguson-report-executive-summary-final.pdf

 

This is definitely worth a read.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/14/police-militarization-ferguson_n_5678407.html?1408034805

[zapatos]

I don't agree with this. Ferguson settled down once a more reasonable police presence was provided.

How can police keep people safe when their very presence incites fury and rioting?

 

 

That's the problem Ferguson faced as a seventh day of rage sparked by the killing of unarmed eighteen-year-old Michael Brown brought more riots, looting, militarized police and tear gas to this typically quiet suburb. As rioters broke into Ferguson Market and Liquor (where Brown allegedly stole cigars before he was shot by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson), Feel Beauty Supply, a meat market and an electronics store, peaceful demonstrators were quick to guard businesses themselves, putting their bodies between the smashed storefronts and looters with covered faces.

 

Except for a tear-gas canister thrown at the beginning of the rioting before midnight, police held back, following cues from community leaders trying to negotiate peace with angry rioters.

 

Peaceful protests in Ferguson had quieted down Friday night, leading many of the community leaders and journalists who've spent a chaotic and exhausting week on the scene to go home or spend time with loved ones.

But the peace broke at Ferguson Market, where an angry crowd of about 200 rioters surrounded officers protecting the store, according to media interviews with Missouri State Highway Patrol Captain Ron Johnson and St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar. Police used tear gas to disperse the crowd and remove officers behind the line set up at West Florissant and Ferguson avenues.

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2014/08/ferguson_protesters_protect_stores_from_looters_riots_police_criticized_for_restraint.php

 

Police, after much deserved criticism, had stayed away as much as they could from the protesters. Many people in the crowd took advantage and began looting stores, leaving it up to some local residents to reign in the looters. There was much criticism of police the next day from store owners, who began to guard of their own stores while holding weapons.

[overtone]

@ overtone, I am not entirely sure what you are implying? It appears the leaded gasoline comment in relationship to impulse control implies that youth in Ferguson may be more prone to violence.

I was just offering a possible and partial explanation for a downturn in young black male incarceration rates, visible in the posted graph. Violent crime rates tend to track childhood lead exposure in all populations and among all races worldwide - the violent crime rates for white people in the US have been dropping, as well, especially among those newly raised in lead-free air.

 

That doesn't excuse the disproportionate rate of incarceration of black people in the US, or in Ferguson in particular.

 

 

 

 

Your implication is that we locals are lying to you when we say segregation in places such as Ferguson is "voluntary".

Wrong, not "lying". Self awareness, historical awareness, are in short supply in deeply racist communities, denial and amnesia are almost universal.

 

Do you have any evidence to go with your implication?

Listening to the police, the mayor, and a slew of randomly selected white people from Ferguson talk about the black people who live in Ferguson. Clearly the black people there live amid a variety of threats and oppressions, and have for generations.

Edited November 7, 2014 by overtone

[zapatos]

Wrong, not "lying". Self awareness, historical awareness, are in short supply in deeply racist communities, denial and amnesia are almost universal.

Huh. I didn't realize I was an amnesiac in denial. What else can you tell me about me?

 

Listening to the police, the mayor, and a slew of randomly selected white people from Ferguson talk about the black people who live in Ferguson.

Between this post and your statement that "I wouldn't be surprised if Ferguson or a nearby town had been a sundown town at some point in its history.", I have to say that what passes for 'evidence' around here is going down the toilet.

[overtone]

Between this post and your statement that "I wouldn't be surprised if Ferguson or a nearby town had been a sundown town at some point in its history.", I have to say that what passes for 'evidence' around here is going down the toilet.

The leading researcher in the area, James Loewen, estimates the likely percentage of sundown towns in eastern Missouri and southern Illinois at 70% - and more highly concentrated than that in Saint Louis region

http://stlhistoryblackwhite.wordpress.com/2011/02/21/sundown-towns-1890-1910/

 

and he is on record as thinking Ferguson was a sundown town, based on its characteristics and location and neighboring towns: http://www.accuracy.org/release/was-ferguson-a-sundown-town/

 

That, and the well known racial politics of Saint Louis and surrounding region, is the context in which we read that the racial segregation of Ferguson, complete with an all white police force and so forth, is "voluntary".

 

Plus, you know, I've been through the area a couple of times. Racially, it's pretty ugly to an outsider.

Edited November 8, 2014 by overtone

[zapatos]

I'm not sure how showing that Ferguson was a Sundown town (a town that is purposely all white) supports your claim that racial segregation is not "voluntary".

If a town designated as 'whites only' is 2/3 black then I would suggest your argument indicates that if anything, involuntary racial segregation in this area is a total failure.

 

That, and the well known racial politics of Saint Louis and surrounding region,

 

Charlie Dooley, who is black, has been the St. Louis County Executive (highest political office in the County) since 2003. The city of Ferguson is in St. Louis County. St. Louis County is 70% white and 24% black.

 

Plus, you know, I've been through the area a couple of times.

Really? A couple of times?

[overtone]

I'm not sure how showing that Ferguson was a Sundown town (a town that is purposely all white) supports your claim that racial segregation is not "voluntary".

You don't understand how recent involuntary racial segregation enforced by violence as well as endemic, hardcore, racial bigotry would have a strong influence on people's "voluntary" behavior and circumstances?

 

 

If a town designated as 'whites only' is 2/3 black then I would suggest your argument indicates that if anything, involuntary racial segregation in this area is a total failure.

That's the typical development of sundown towns - the first blacks moving in cause a flight of fearful white bigots (their view of blacks was why they excluded blacks in the first place) , fears exacerbated by predatory financial and real estate interests, so the town "flips" - the current racial makeup of Ferguson compared with its police etc was one of the characteristics noted by Loewen in identifying it as a likely (not certainly identified, just very likely) sundown town.

 

The point is that this sundown town stuff, with everything it implies about cultural norms regarding race, was not very long ago. One generation. The current generation of old folks lived with it, grew up under it.

 

 

 

 

Plus, you know, I've been through the area a couple of times.

Really? A couple of times?

 

Once would have been enough for hearing somebody claim that the racial segregation is "voluntary". The racial situation is flagrant, obvious, in your face, if you're new to the area.

Edited November 11, 2014 by overtone

[zapatos]

You don't understand how recent involuntary racial segregation enforced by violence as well as endemic, hardcore, racial bigotry would have a strong influence on people's "voluntary" behavior and circumstances?

No, I don't understand how a 'whites only' town that is 2/3 black supports your position that blacks have to live where whites tell them to live. Are you suggesting that blacks feel they have to live there because whites told them not to not long ago?

 

That's the typical development of sundown towns - the first blacks moving in cause a flight of fearful white bigots (their view of blacks was why they excluded blacks in the first place) , fears exacerbated by predatory financial and real estate interests, so the town "flips" - the current racial makeup of Ferguson compared with its police etc was one of the characteristics noted by Loewen in identifying it as a likely (not certainly identified, just very likely) sundown town.

The point is that this sundown town stuff, with everything it implies about cultural norms regarding race, was not very long ago. One generation. The current generation of old folks lived with it, grew up under it.

Still don't get your point. I'm not denying that there used to be involuntary segregation. How does this show involuntary segregation is current?

Once would have been enough for hearing somebody claim that the racial segregation is "voluntary". The racial situation is flagrant, obvious, in your face, if you're new to the area.

So what was the duration of your stay in the region, and what was your sample size that allowed you to draw your conclusions about the region? How did you randomly select white people? Can you give some examples of the flagrant, obvious, in your face racism?

[Ten oz]

No, I don't understand how a 'whites only' town that is 2/3 black supports your position that blacks have to live where whites tell them to live. Are you suggesting that blacks feel they have to live there because whites told them not to not long ago? Still don't get your point. I'm not denying that there used to be involuntary segregation. How does this show involuntary segregation is current? So what was the duration of your stay in the region, and what was your sample size that allowed you to draw your conclusions about the region? How did you randomly select white people? Can you give some examples of the flagrant, obvious, in your face racism?

First, as a disclaimer of sorts, I do not believe all blacks or all whites choose anything universally. To say blacks in Ferguson choose to segregate or vice versa lumps everyone together under an assumed position. I don't think that is an accurate way of viewing the situation. There was once a time in the United States were almost 100% of the Black community lived in the South. Today it is down to 55%. Families are migrating.

 

So if blacks are not choosing to segregate themselves universally than how is that so many still are? I believe the answer to that question is economic more so than racial. Legal segregation in the united States just ended a generation ago. Beyond its impact on where people lived it also impacted employment and wealth attainment. A whole race of people were prevented upward mobility. Once the laws were changed many whites simply moved rather than live in integrated communities. It takes money to move and coming out of the 60's few in the Black community had wealth. I am sure you've heard of "White Flight". Plush Suburbs were built, real-estate sky rocketed in white communities, and a lot of ethnic people were left living in the parts of town they could still afford. In Ferguson the average annual per capita income is $5,000 less than for the state of Missouri and $8,000 less than the average for the United States as a whole. So moving to some other community is a lot easier said than done.

 

Source of income data - http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/29000.html

[zapatos]

Redlining in St. Louis was common until around 1970 or so, and that had a lot to do with where blacks and whites ended up in the region. I have bought and sold several houses here over the past 30 years and any query about 'safety of neighborhoods', etc. is met with silence or a suggestion that if you'd like further information about schools, crime, etc. then you should do some research. If a real estate agent makes questionable statements about neighborhoods or potential buyers they are at high risk of losing their jobs. Regulators posing as buyers regularly go out testing the real estate agent's adherence to the law regarding this topic.

 

There still seems to be a disparity in access to banking services between whites and blacks, although I believe this is a national problem, not just a St. Louis problem.

 

In 1923, the St. Louis Real Estate Exchange adopted a referendum creating unrestricted zones in the citys historically black neighborhoods where members were allowed to sell to black people but outside of them, they could lose their licenses if they sold a property to a black family. As Professor Colin Gordon of the University of Iowa writes in his website that thoroughly documents these policies and the citys changing demographics, Both the Citys Real Estate Exchange and the Missouri Real Estate Commission routinely and openly interpreted sales to blacks in white areas as a form of professional misconduct. In 1941, the zones were combined into one restricted district, and then the St. Louis exchange began using covenants that restricted the use and resale of properties to black people. By the 1940s, almost 380 covenants covered large and strategic swaths of the Citys residential property base, Gordon writes.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/08/14/3471237/ferguson-housing-segregation/

[Ten oz]

"The homeownership rate, as well as its variations over time, has varied significantly by race.[8] While homeowners constitute the majority of white, Asian and Native American households, the homeownership rate for African Americans and those identifying as Hispanic or Latino has typically fallen short of the fifty percent threshold. Whites have had the highest homeownership rate, followed by Asians and Native Americans." http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeownership_in_the_United_States

 

Home ownership percentage for whites in 74% where as it is 46% for blacks. Laws may prevent racism in the buying and selling of homes but a person still needs the economics means to purchase a home. Blacks have the lowest average income in the country. As I mentioned before the segregation is economically based.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_groups_in_the_United_States_by_household_income

[zapatos]

Yes, I imagine economics is a huge factor in segregation, at least at the higher end of the scale. The 'whitest' neighborhoods I know of are also the most wealthy, but I think racism is lower in these areas.

 

Many areas of low income seem to be racially mixed around here, at least in the metropolitan area. If you move out into the more rural areas I notice many more racist whites. I know areas where I would feel reasonably safe if I was visiting, but would not consider moving into the area (I am white). Simiarly there are areas that I'm sure blacks would visit but wouldn't consider moving into.

 

Some of it is more than likely socially based too as people tend to gather with those they find similar to themselves.

[overtone]

No, I don't understand how a 'whites only' town that is 2/3 black supports your position that blacks have to live where whites tell them to live.

1) That isn't my position. 2) The common evolution of a sundown town produces something that looks exactly like Ferguson. I linked you to the most accessible research in that area, and you can read the opinion about Ferguson of the most well-known researcher in that link. Otherwise, Google will hand you several such sources based on simple keywords such as "Ferguson sundown town".

 

 

 

 

I'm not denying that there used to be involuntary segregation. How does this show involuntary segregation is current?

The involuntary segregation of the very recent past created the town you see now, and the choices people can make now, and the contingencies facing them when they make those choices. No black person in Ferguson "volunteered" to live in a town with an all white police force, inferior schools, inferior governmental services, targeted zoning and financial policies, and all the racial stigma the white flight backlash can manage to impose. Racial bigotry is a living, significant, currently influential social force in that entire area, and the white racial bigots have disproportionate power remaining from the truly vicious customs of the very recent past.

 

 

 

There still seems to be a disparity in access to banking services between whites and blacks, although I believe this is a national problem, not just a St. Louis problem.

It is a St Louis problem, not just a national problem.

 

 

 

 

There was once a time in the United States were almost 100% of the Black community lived in the South. Today it is down to 55%. Families are migrating.

Putting that in the passive voice - "families are migrating" - conceals the nature of the event. There was a massive flight of black people from the abuse and oppression of the old Confederacy - the Jim Crow laws, the Klan, the landlords and patrons, the terrorism and threat and continual degradation the white citizenry imposed on their black neighbors in the failure of Reconstruction. It was deliberate, planned, carefully engineered escape, often in the face of risk and threat. It was one of the largest refugee migrations in the history of the human species, and almost unique in its crossing of weather zones from mild to harsh - these people moved to Chicago, Detroit, New York, from warm southern climates. Edited November 12, 2014 by overtone

[Ten oz]

 

The involuntary segregation of the very recent past created the town you see now, and the choices people can make now, and the contingencies facing them when they make those choices. No black person in Ferguson "volunteered" to live in a town with an all white police force, inferior schools, inferior governmental services, targeted zoning and financial policies, and all the racial stigma the white flight backlash can manage to impose. Racial bigotry is a living, significant, currently influential social force in that entire area, and the white racial bigots have disproportionate power remaining from the truly vicious customs of the very recent past.

 

 

It is a St Louis problem, not just a national problem.

 

 

Putting that in the passive voice - "families are migrating" - conceals the nature of the event. There was a massive flight of black people from the abuse and oppression of the old Confederacy - the Jim Crow laws, the Klan, the landlords and patrons, the terrorism and threat and continual degradation the white citizenry imposed on their black neighbors in the failure of Reconstruction. It was deliberate, planned, carefully engineered escape, often in the face of risk and threat. It was one of the largest refugee migrations in the history of the human species, and almost unique in its crossing of weather zones from mild to harsh - these people moved to Chicago, Detroit, New York, from warm southern climates.

 

I agree with what you are saying and would add that families that did escape to Detroit, Oakland, New York, etc then had to contend with white flight and political gerrymandering of districts which basically recreated the segregation they had fled.

[overtone]

add that families that did escape to Detroit, Oakland, New York, etc then had to contend with white flight and political gerrymandering of districts which basically recreated the segregation they had fled.

While true, this also tends to obscure and diminish the situation: they weren't fleeing "segregation", they were fleeing systems of abuse and oppression so ugly and evil that their mere existence has been routinely omitted from public discussion (even denied) for generations, is only recently being even described accurately.

 

The older generation in Ferguson was raised under such, their formative experiences of childhood happened in that context. For example: When they were children the Klan was actively terrorizing people in Missouri, and it's still around reminding them of its existence and nature: http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=93638 It was that recent the churches are still in the early stages of dealing with its effects on them http://www.oakwood.edu/historyportal/Ejah/2005/Racial%20Kan%20and%20MO.htm That's the context in which the black residents of Ferguson find themselves with a police force of white men hired from neighboring white flight and rural areas of sundown territory.

 

But that established, the OP topic had a dimension so far overlooked: what should we do now?

Edited November 19, 2014 by overtone

[davidivad]

i grew up in st louis

you point at the cop, that is understood by all hoodlems

the community will prosper only when it decides to take care of itself

where are the committies that create community involvement?

the community must grow beyond and quit living in the past.

investing in your community should not be a secret.

we lost track of community and made it a race thing.

wanna fuss, get involved with your community first.

show ferguson what it needs to do.

Edited November 19, 2014 by davidivad

[davidivad]

if i were young, i would keep track of the news so i knew when events took place.

i would then get a insulated catch bag and fill it with ice and soda.

one dollar gets a cold coke...

anything else i can help with?

bring forth the next generation.

its time.

lets make an investment.

this is how money works and it is what makes the world run.

black and white is only a dream.

dream harder.

[Willie71]

What do we do now? These types of situations require a three generation solution. Step one is acceptance. The people of ferguson are the way they are, and they make sense. Only 5% of people class jump independently, so a spontaneous solution is out. Prosecute police for violations of the constitution, and stop racial profiling. There needs to be community outreach, police involved in the community, with a non judgemental stance. Organize sports teams, community get togethers. Few will attend at first, but as the years pass, the people will start trusting. Hot breakfast school programs, free tutoring, and scholarship opportunities are all known to be effective. Keep the drug dealers out of the schools. In three generations, you will have a much higher functioning community. People need to be proud of who they are, not judged and ashamed.