Riots in Ferguson, MO

[smigon]

This was an interview about the poverty/affluent areas being so close yet so far away. Please listen to the discussion, it is only a few minutes long but sheds light on the plight of so many African-Americans. I followed up with my own experiences of seeing this happen first hand.

[URL="http://www.npr.org/2014/08/17/341164546/in-st-louis-area-a-short-distance-can-make-a-big-difference"]how one number can affect so many lives[/URL]

The Ferguson riots are just both maddening and saddening to me. Please listen to this short interview on NPR regarding the difference one single digit can make person's life.

I grew up in the zip code of 63105 where I was given the fortune of one of the best young educations in the nation and access to culture and educational activity. Listening to this report about the differences between Clayton and neighborhoods of Ferguson and other North St. Louis townships really shows how just one number in a zip code can make a difference in how people are treated.

Later in life I moved to the hip-urban area of Soulard near downtown St. Louis and felt the cultural difference personally. Soulard's zip code, coincidentally, is 63104. This zip code encompassed not only the young professional residents and quaint bars and restaurants, it also housed the Darst-Webbe housing projects. We couldn't order pizza to be delivered because companies are not allowed to discriminate against delivery addresses within a zip code, which is one we shared with one of the most dangerous parts of the city. We were refused many services simply because of one number. Plumbers and locksmiths were wary and sometimes refused jobs in fear for loss of their tools or worse, their lives. One digit affected the lives and livelihoods of both residents and businesses.

I hope someday there will be a time when one digit doesn't matter.

 

[Chip]

A different angle than the NPR article, but so many problems could be solved with cameras on cops. If the state is going to exert force on its citizens, there is no reason it shouldn't be documented. It would greatly decrease not only occasions of police acting lawlessly, but citizens would also know they are being recorded. I'd rather see my local small town police invest in cameras than armored personnel carriers, personally. I have a friend who kicked doors in Fallujah, and said his infantry was less armed than the Ferguson police department is in these photos. And it's all justified by the war on drugs.

 

[kathylove]

I agree, Chip!! But the military stuff is free from the feds. I imagine police departments have to buy the cameras themselves. That shows where gov't priorities are, unfortunately.

 

[tsst]

I have a difficult time understanding the thought processes in situations like Ferguson. As a libertarian/independent I get the concern with the overstepping of our gov and the militarization of police forces. I share that concern immensely. I also get not blindly trusting in a police action. I constantly question the way in which our liberties are seemingly peeled away with little regard.

I don't get the 'hey some cop killed a young man, lets go burn down a gas station and rob the JcPenney'. I don’t get mob mentality at so many levels that far outpaces the release of facts. I fear situations like this will get far worse and more common before they get better. The Al Sharptons of the world pushing a narrative of division, that seems to only serve him well while leaving those he incites with the aftermath to deal with. The gov with a rarer and rarer show of concern turning instead to a willingness to stoke.

There is one thing we all share, personal responsibility. It encompasses all of us from the police to the young man, from the gov to the parents. Until we grasp this and stop blaming another race, gender, nationality, religion, socioeconomic group, agency, individual, etc we are doomed to fail at making the world a better place.

To the OP: thanks for the post. It was an interesting correlation between a zip and communal perception.

 

[Nythain]

KC is a little broader than it's metropolitan brother Lou, our entire social, economical, and to an extent cultural differences are drawn with county lines instead of zip codes. Same exact thing though. Uppity suburban clay, white trash platte, crimedot (wyandotte), and downtown jackson. Zip code isn't as drastic and defining, probably because we have a plethora of them here.