Unlike Plaidshoes, who has only been here in the St. Louis area for 20 yrs., I am a second generation native (both of my parents were born here, but none of my grandparents were).
When Brown v. Board came down in 1954, white North St. Louis City hightailed it out of the city and settled in North St. Louis County, in small cities like Ferguson. Once blacks were able to afford to move to North County, white North County hightailed it again; this time to way West St. Louis County and St. Charles County.
White Ferguson is living their life as if nothing has really changed all that much. Half of them were clueless to the situation of black Ferguson. They weren’t part of that 92% of police stops in Ferguson. They weren’t the ones who were going to municipal court on Tuesday nights to pay fines that support half of the city’s budget. They get to walk down the street unimpeded.
So while I understand Plaidshoe’s wish that the ‘agitators’ (a loaded term) would stop stirring up things, from my side of the divide, without those agitators Michael Brown would have been just another black kid who got killed by the police for doing nothing other than being black in a public space.
