Haven't read anything in this thread yet. I'm not qualified to speak for anyone other than myself, but as the only member on here living in St. Louis, and living exactly 9.5 miles from there, and having been there numerous times for business...maybe I have a perspective some might find interesting.
1) This area is as racially segregated as any city in America. Very few places where whites and black mix in any numbers. It's very tribal here. North is predominately black, south and west is predominately white. I grew up in Illinois (right across the Mississippi - think the Wirral to Liverpool) in a very mixed town so I was lucky none of this racial BS inefcted me. I grew up with white kids, black kids, asian kids you name it. It was normal for me. For most people from St. Louis (the Missouri side) that is not an experience they had. Most schools are either black or white because most neighborhoods are or the other. We have busing (from the desegregation laws of the 60's/70's) but you're talking small numbers of city black kids that go to suburban school.
2) Ferguson is a normal place. It's predominately black, but I can assure you it's not "the hood". I know what the hood looks like and Ferguson ain't it. Emerson Electric, one of the largest companies in the world is headquartered there. I've been there numerous times, had lunch, shopped...it's a working class suburb with some nice areas and some run down areas like a lot of places. It's not the crime capital of anywhere.
3) This is a world wide issue, but I'm not even sure I can explain what this is doing to people here. I've 100% purposefully swerved this on Facebook, because friendships are ending, fights are breaking out, and people's worst instincts are being revealed. All I can tell you is there are some people that I now view very differently based on their facebook posts. People I now consider to be unworthy of friendship. It's in moments like this when true character is revealed in my opinion.
4) Do I think Darren Wilson got up that morning itching to kill some black kid? No, of course not. But I will tell you this. In this country, every single person, black or white, is taught/conditioned to believe that young, black men are dangerous. If you worked a job like Darren Wilson, where you were conditioned to believe that young black men weren't human, they were potential threats to your life, you'd have a warped sense of reality. And that goes for cops everywhere. I've known plenty of cops in my life. This idea that they're all fair minded civic heroes is laughable. I don't know Darren Wilson, and to be honest I feel sorry for him. I think he lost his mind momentarily and now a kid is dead, and his life is potentially ruined. The defense of Darren Wilson has already started, but to me he's toast. He's going to jail. And I don't want to think about what will happen to him there.
5) The fact that Michael Brown was involved in a robbery (not armed) that morning is irrelevant. The punishment for suspected theft of cigars is not execution in the streets. If it is now, I'm getting the fuk out of here.
6) The militarization of our police forces is the most threatening thing of all. This is what war does. We've created a generation of wannabe heroes who want assault vehicles and swat gear, and then they want to use it.
7) The people looting are morons and criminals. They're hurting the focus on what happened here. But then morons and criminals only really care about themselves don't they? They don't have a social or political bone in their body.
8) Finally...there are so many white people in this town and country who are being very free with their conclusions and opinions. Here's the problem. Not one of them...and that includes me...knows what it's like to be black in this country...or worse, poor and black. They think racism ended in 1964...or when Obama got elected. "See America isn't racist!". Bullshit. Let me give you access to my facebook feed and tell me this country isn't divided by race.
It's a sad situation. No one wins here. Nothing is going to change. People's reactions to this have convinced me of that. Once [Poor language removed] started going down people chose sides and everything they've done since is to look for things that support their opinion. Very few people give a [Poor language removed] about what actually happened. It's depressing.
Everton dropping 2 points on Saturday didn't help either, bastards.
