I have a lot to share here, but it all feels trivial.  And I don’t feel fully qualified to talk about what isn’t trivial, as Heather so pointedly stated a few months ago:

Because who the hell am I? I am a white woman raised in a white household, a white woman who has experienced nothing but privilege her entire life. I have never known persecution or been maligned because of my minority status. I have never had to worry that the color of my skin would in any way cost me the slightest luxury or basic human right.

Read more: http://dooce.com/2014/06/12/i-have-words/#ixzz3AkuTJZWt

Yet who the hell am I to NOT talk about this?  Though I have yet to be there physically, most of my heart and mind feel stuck in Ferguson, MO.  This is important.  There is so much to read and process — so much background to understand about how we got to this point and so much wisdom and grace needed to begin to move forward, to change.

Recommended reading

St. Louis: A city divided

What’s unusual about St. Louis — and goes a long way to explain the tension of the Ferguson protests — is not racism per se, but the way the metropolitan area has chopped itself into bits, remaining socially and economically segregated long after the racist laws were erased from the books.

For the Sake of Michael Brown

It may take a village to raise a child, but many administrators and parents in better-resourced parts of our region had no problem saying quite publicly that Michael Brown and his brothers and sisters did not belong in their village.

What I Did After Police Killed My Son

Our country is simply not paying enough attention to the terrible lack of accountability of police departments and the way it affects all of us—regardless of race or ethnicity. Because if a blond-haired, blue-eyed boy — that was my son, Michael — can be shot in the head under a street light with his hands cuffed behind his back, in front of five eyewitnesses (including his mother and sister), and his father was a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who flew in three wars for his country — that’s me — and I still couldn’t get anything done about it, then Joe the plumber and Javier the roofer aren’t going to be able to do anything about it either.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/08/what-i-did-after-police-killed-my-son-110038.html#ixzz3Al0q3DMS

Alternatives to guns?

Over the weekend, I asked Matthew, “Couldn’t police officers just use tasers and stun guns?”  You know, something less permanent than putting a bullet in someone?

After reading a bit more about the uses and limitations of such weapons, I think the answer is, yes, maybe, but not as long as everyone and his brother is running around armed with real guns in this country.

And, sadly, we seem headed in just the opposite direction, given what this situation has revealed about the militarization of police forces (haven’t read the book I link to, but it looks worth a read).

Walking in the street

While we have far from a full, clear account of exactly what happened between Darren Wilson (the police officer) and Michael Brown (the victim) on August 9, the accounts of Wilson initially stopping Brown because he was “walking in the street” really struck me.

For some background, the term “jaywalking” did not exist until the invention of the automobile in the early 1900s:

The term’s dissemination was due in part to a deliberate effort by promoters of automobiles, such as local auto clubs and dealers, to redefine streets as places where pedestrians do not belong.  (Wikipedia, emphasis mine)

If our streets were for people instead of for cars, would Mike Brown still be alive?

I don’t mean to over-simplify this, or direct attention away from the very important issues of inequality or injustice, but I can’t help but wonder.

White privilege

White privilege.  I think those are hard words to hear.  What do they mean?  What do they call us to do?

Yesterday, parishioner at my church recommended the book Witnessing Whiteness by Shelly Tochluk as a starting point for this important discussion.  I just requested a copy from the library.

If you’re in St. Louis, and want to be part of a discussion group, check out the YWCA (dates/times are for 2012 — I wrote to ask them to update the page, as I believe there will be a group starting in September 2014).

Despite living less than 18 miles from Ferguson, MO, I didn’t hear about the events that unfolded last weekend (and continue to unfold) until more than forty-eight hours later.  In a small cabin south of Crater Lake in Oregon, I received a garbled second-hand account of the rioting and looting from my MIL, who had just spoken to her brother.

I turned to the internet, where I learned about Michael Brown’s death at the hands of a police officer, and I watched with a breaking heart from hundreds of miles away: loss, hate, hope, anger, love, grief.

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After nine years in St. Louis, I’m no stranger to the fact that the region has race issues.

I’m often struck by the make-up of crowds that I’m in, how in a city that is split almost exactly fifty-fifty between white and black, that racial mix is rarely represented at a given place or event.

In May, I took G to be tested to see if he would qualify for speech services through St. Louis Public Schools.  Our assigned testing site was Gateway Elementary and Middle School in north St. Louis City.  As we were leaving, we were caught in the halls during a class change at the middle school, and I was struck by the fact that I did not see a single white student in that hallway.  I wasn’t surprised, exactly, but all I could think was, “It’s the year 2014, and segregation is alive and well.”

This is not an accident, but rather the result of concerted historical efforts in St. Louis (as well as other cities), to separate white people and black people, and “protect property values,” through the use of [racially] restrictive covenants in real estate, which created white neighborhoods and black neighborhoods.

The effects of these covenants are still apparent in St. Louis City and the surrounding suburbs today.  For a closer look at how this played out in and near Ferguson, check out Jeff Smith’s excellent post, “You Can’t Understand Ferguson without First Understanding these Three Things.”

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I’ve been in Kinloch and other parts of north county.  I vividly remember an assignment in grad school, which involved visiting a number of parks in the metro area, assessing them from a usability perspective (okay, we say people should just get out and exercise — what are the sidewalks and the parks near their houses like — is that really feasible???).  For the exercise, we were assigned partners and a list of parks to assess, ranging from nice to not-so-nice.

My [white, female] partner and I were in a large, but clearly under-resourced, park in a predominantly African-American neighborhood in north St. Louis County (we may have actually been IN Kinloch, or not far from) when a couple of police officers approached and asked what we were doing there.

I don’t remember exactly what was said, but it was clear to my partner and I that the officers assumed that only thing white people could be doing in that park was buying or selling drugs.  We explained our assignment and showed them our park inventory sheet, and they let us continue.

I was fairly new to St. Louis at the time, and the encounter was both surprising and saddening.  Despite being across the street from a decent-sized apartment complex, we were the only people out in the park on a Saturday morning.  Was drug-dealing really the only thing that happened in that park?  Was the perceived (and perhaps real) danger just too high for residents to use the park for recreational purposes?

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I know people who live in Ferguson, including our real estate agent and a fellow CyclingSavvy instructor, who is also a small business (a bike shop, of course) owner there.  There is a great organic farm and farmer training program within the city limits, and a Saturday Farmers’ Market.  This is also Ferguson, MO.

But as the events of the past week demonstrate, there are some very real issues that we must face, not just in Ferguson, but in the entire St. Louis metro area (and in other parts of the country as well), issues stemming from a long history of racial injustice and disparities in education, healthcare, and economic opportunity.

At the same time as my heart breaks at the continued violence and unrest, there are many more heartening stories, and images, of a community and region pulling together.  My hope and prayer is that this won’t just “go away,” but will lead to real, honest dialogue; enlightenment; and then action to change things.  This process won’t be easy or painless, and change won’t happen overnight, but we can, and must, do better.