On any weekday morning, streams of cars from Illinois can be seen flowing into the City of St. Louis. Many, if not all, are headed to jobs in the city. In a country that has proven its propensity towards white citizens since its inception, it should be of no surprise that the occupants of those cars are seldom people of color.
City officials have proffered the disingenuous argument that out-of-state employees pay city taxes. So, too, would city residents were they hired. Non-residents do not, however, make any other significant contribution to our tax base. They pay neither real estate nor property taxes. They don’t pay taxes on their utilities or in-state services. Based on the density of the 5 p.m. traffic returning to our neighboring state, they are paying little in sales tax at our gas stations, retail shops, or malls. The closing of dozens of downtown restaurants and the dearth of business at those that remain suggest that neither do they regularly patronize our restaurants.
While tens of thousands of North St. Louis residents find it difficult to secure meaningful jobs, an aldermanic bill has been introduced to further diminish the chance. For decades, even the most skilled black workers have been turned away while the positions are surreptitiously filled. For decades our city leaders have allowed our housing stock to fall further into decay, with the maintenance of an older housing stock out of reach of the under- or unemployed resident. That decline in value necessarily means a decline in taxes. Still, there is an effort to further decrease employment opportunities for city residents perpetuating the practice of hiring others who want to work here but don’t care enough to live here.
The growing rate of unemployment, vacant houses, and sense of abandonment of areas populated by blacks in the City of St. Louis contribute to the increase in violent and non-violent crimes. The lack of employment opportunities will always result in an increase in the social maladies that accompany stress and poverty. And yet, despite a recent verdict where the judicial process was orchestrated to result in a bench trial acquitting a police officer who killed an arguably unarmed black man after announcing his intent to do so, there is now a call to bring into the ranks of our police department those who neither know their city neighbors nor care enough to live next door.
It is a call to bring into the rank and file people who can restrict the movement of city residents doing no more than driving or walking while black, but want greater freedom for themselves. It is a call to attract those who can permanently confine blacks to prison cells in grossly disproportionate and inequitable numbers, but want the freedom to expand the choice of where they live.
With thousands of jobs and tax dollars already hemorrhaging to our next-door neighbors, it is an insult to residents of the City of St. Louis to suggest that an insufficient number are qualified. Rather than perpetuate a practice that has systemically denied employment to qualified black residents, the thorn that makes our town so unappealing to those who want to work here but not live here should remain in our side until we create a city that every employee wants to call home.
Christi Griffin, is the founder of The Ethics Project, a non-profit organization addressing the impact of crime, injustice and incarcerations. She is the author of “Incarcerations in Black and White: The Subjugation of Black America.”
