Minister Louis Farrakhan, in a recent webcast, spoke of the turmoil in Ferguson, MO and made the following analysis: “In every city and town where black people live, black men are being shot down by the police.”
The statement struck my spirit because I vividly remember back in the 1990s when Belleville News-Democrat reporter Carolyn Tuft and, eventually, “60 Minutes” exposed a Belleville police department “goon squad” which was tasked with the job of harassing and ticketing blacks traveling from East St. Louis toward west Belleville, IL.
Many of the whites, who resided in Belleville at the time, were former residents of East St. Louis who fled there in the 1970s following an influx of black residents who turned ESL into a predominantly African-American community.
Ferguson has similar history, going from a predominantly white town in the 1980s to having a 67 percent black population (yet, a white power structure) in 2014, as well as earning a reputation (among black motorists) as an unwelcoming place, where harassment was to be expected.
In fact, racial profiling data from 2013 reveals that 86 percent of all Ferguson traffic stops and 92 percent of all traffic arrests were of black motorists.
So, as I’ve processed the justifiable outrage following the killing of Michael Brown by Ferguson Officer Darren Wilson, particularly the manner in which he was killed (six shots, two head shots), it’s not a stretch for me to believe that this horrific shooting could just have as easily been in Belleville, Fairview Heights, Shiloh – all Illinois towns where many whites fled to escape their East St. Louis roots and proximity to black folks.
The tension on the “IL Side” stems from the fact that many upwardly mobile blacks have chosen to move to these areas, to the disgust of some of their white neighbors who are saying, amongst themselves, “There goes our neighborhood.”
Ferguson’s tensions, initially, developed in the 1980s as many blacks relocated from the city of St. Louis to Ferguson and neighboring areas in north St. Louis County.
So there are stark parallels between Ferguson and certain suburban communities in Illinois which could have just as easily placed a Belleville, Fairview Heights or Shiloh on the world stage as a poster child for racism and incompetence.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that “Violence is the language of the unheard.” That may very well be the case for many of the Ferguson protestors. The looters who exploited this unfortunate tragedy are merely self-centered opportunists.
By contrast, writer Isaac Asimov said that “Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.” That is an accurate description of Ferguson police who initially created this chaos with poor community relations, the killing of an unarmed black teen and allowing his body to remain in the street for over four hours.
Then, to exacerbate matters, the Ferguson and St. Louis County police departments engaged in the suppression of information and militia-like harassment of protestors and media until being forcibly relieved by Missouri State Highway Patrol and the National Guard.
But, to my fellow Metro-East residents, this could just have easily been us. Don’t get too comfortable. We are just one shooting, one chokehold, one beating of an innocent black Illinois resident away from CNN, MSNBC, FOX and world media asking us the same thing that they’re asking Ferguson, MO. And that question is: WHY?
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com; Twitter@JamesTIngram.
