A Microcosm or an Anomaly?

When Michael Brown was shot by police in Fergusson, Missouri, after a series of riots turned the town inside out, Governor Jay Nixon appointed a special 16-member commission to analyze the racial issues in and around the region, delve into the underlying causation and suggest possible solutions. The resulting 198-page report – Forward through Ferguson: A Path toward Racial Equity – was released on Monday, September 14^th.

The report provides underlying facts and figures that should make each and every one of us ashamed. While there is no way that the ethos and practices in and around Fergusson are reflective of average American values, there are more than a few cities and towns where such realities are indeed the norm. Just looking at some of the elements in that report make fascinating, if not disgusting, reading.

“The commission offers a blunt, painful picture of racial inequity in the region. Black motorists were 75 percent more likely to be pulled over for traffic stops in Missouri than whites last year, the report notes. The average life expectancy in one mostly black suburb, Kinloch, is more than three decades less than in the mostly white suburb of Wildwood, the report finds. And 14.3 percent of black elementary students in Missouri were suspended at least once during a recent school year, compared with 1.8 percent of white students…

“[T]he commission lays out goals that are ambitious, wide ranging and, in many cases, politically delicate. Among 47 top priorities, the group calls for increasing the minimum wage, expanding eligibility for Medicaid and consolidating the patchwork of 60 police forces and 81 municipal courts that cover St. Louis and its suburbs.” New York Times, September 14^th.

The regional zip code information indicated that 46% of the region’s children were living at or below the poverty level, and the rate of poverty is accelerating rapidly. The area around St. Louis is a hodgepodge of a judicial quagmire. Training among the many police departments is anything but uniform, and the plague of Fergusson – an almost-all-white police department watching over an almost-all-black community has led to double standards (one set of rules for white, and another for black), and a rather complete breakdown between police department and community. Bad schools, dire poverty, hideous access to healthcare, unchecked crime, biased police departments, few jobs and very little hope.

The report itself notes: “For example, at its extreme in the St. Louis region, life expectancy differs by nearly 40 years depending on zip (Comprehensive Planning Division, 2015). In mostly White, suburban Wildwood, Missouri, the life expectancy is 91.4 years. In the mostly Black, inner-ring suburb of Kinloch, Missouri, life expectancy is just 55.9 years (Comprehensive Planning Division, 2015)…

“The life expectancy for a resident of zip code 63105 (Clayton), whose population is 9 percent Black, is 85 years. The life expectancy for a resident of zip code 63016 (North St. Louis), whose population is 95% Black, is 67 years (Purnell, et al., 2014). While there are also significant disparities between these two zip codes in unemployment, poverty, and median household income, this difference of 18 years of life between average residents in zip codes less than 10 miles away illustrates a health inequity that is alarming…The law says all citizens are equal… But the data says not everyone is treated that way.”

Local police departments seemed to be more obsessed with making money with speed traps (the state legislature has since limited how much local departments could keep of fines assessed) than applying a fair and equal treatment of the law. The commission suggested a consolidation of police departments, uniform higher standards of police training and deeply increasing the communication of police with the communities they serve.

“The commission… envisions many more shifts ahead. It calls for an end to predatory lending practices, and the creation of ‘inclusionary’ zoning laws. It wants a task force to study the complex education landscape in the St. Louis region, and a revision of the state’s schools accreditation system.

“On questions of policing, the proposed changes are among the most extensive. The commission calls for assigning the state attorney general as a special prosecutor in all cases of police use of force resulting in deaths; requiring the state highway patrol to investigate most police use of force cases ending in deaths; creating a statewide use of force database, available to the public, charting use-of-force complaints; and directing police departments to revise their policies and training to authorize only the minimal use of force needed.” NY Times. The commission has also suggested that a second, more permanent commission be appointed to supervise the required changes. But who will pay for those changes? Who will mandate what is needed to be done?

With 1,777 violent crimes per 100,000 residents, the St. Louis area is the third most crime-ridden urban area in the United States, behind only Detroit and Oakland. For those on the wrong side of the economic ladder, white or black, it’s a region soaked in hopelessness and danger. Even its rich cultural musical history, its legendary status as the gateway to the west and its incredible indigenous cuisine have not sheltered this city from the kinds of polarizing decay that recent austerity measures across the land have imposed. They have have slashed the quality of life, particularly hurtful to those at the bottom of hope. See that picture above? It’s from a videogame. Life isn’t one! Fergusson is worse.

As the commission report states, it’s taken several generations of descending neglect to bring this region down to the level to which it has fallen to date. The “I’ve got it but I won’t help you” attitude of neo-conservatives has led to a level of “us” versus “them” polarization we haven’t seen in many, many years in this country. Conservative Christians tell us that “giving” is an individual choice of the pious. They just haven’t felt the urge, I guess. Where does your town, city or rural area fall on the “take care of those less fortunate than me” spectrum? And how much does that matter to you?

I’m Peter Dekom, and where change is necessary to preserve our nation and unify our people, you and I are the agents of that change; failure to care, failure to act are the failings of us all.