Recently the cancelled baseball game between two teams of five-year-olds generated a flurry of conversation in at least two St. Louis communities. The concern of parents from the affluent (and still predominantly white) St. Louis County community of Webster Groves with their children playing in a more racially mixed University City park raised issues of racial insensitivity.
The cancellation, spawned by fears of violence and drive-by shootings, invoked discussions about the Delmar Divide, a symbol of the stark difference in economic and social conditions between two neighborhoods divided by a single street. University City, once equally as segregated as Webster Groves, has embraced a much more diverse population.
Understandably, the cancellation was offensive. The children on both sides were undoubtedly hurt. The pastor of one school saw a teachable moment. Parents were incensed. Many were up in arms that someone dare speak truthfully about race.
Truth be told, more than one child has died at the hands of a gun-wielding African American, fueled by years of discrimination, criminalization and benign neglect. Young men – whose families have been torn by poverty, under-employment, abuse and intergenerational incarceration – have often taken to the streets to diffuse the strife. But – unlike mass killings at Sandy Hook, Columbine and Orlando that strike up conversations about gun control, the NRA and mental health – individual shootings by blacks are quickly racialized.
Too often in these situations, our defense mechanisms go up and the focus quickly becomes the narrow issue of race. Too often, reactions that deny the stark realities add more layers of gloss over the underlying causes of violence. In the end, even the well-intended conversations that dissect presumptions of guilt on both side give little attention to the socio-economic changes desperately needed to end the divide.
We find it easier to have those Kumbaya moments where we listen to the thoughts and concerns of the other side, than to develop strategies to end underemployment, mass incarceration, media biases, predatory lending, housing discrimination, mental health disparities, excessive sentencing, over-medicating our children and elderly, over-prosecution, bussing and stripping of educational funds in favor of more police and prisons.
Reality wails. Two weeks before Michael Brown Jr. was killed by a Ferguson police officer in August 2014, a teenage boy was killed and another wounded in a University City park. Months later, a nine-year-old girl was killed in yet another drive-by shooting. With those and other reports on the minds of parents whose children spend summers in the comfort and safety of country club pools, the reality of violence forecloses meaningful progress.
Suggestions that white parents have no right to express concern or take action to protect their children from random bullets hold little, if any, merit. Indeed, those same parents may very well harbor thoughts of racial animosity. They may, in fact, perpetuate racial strife by their comments and actions. They may be among those who discriminate against blacks and avoid interaction. But to minimize the validity of their concerns about errant bullets that have killed teens and children alike is to foreclose the possibility of bridging the racial gap.
Denying a parent’s substantiated concern over the safety of their child, makes impossible a rational approach to creating a world where the need to shoot or otherwise commit crimes is greatly diminished. It’s time to listen to and act on the concerns of both sides. We’ve created a world where both sides have very legitimate concerns.
Christi Griffin is the founder of The Ethics Project, a non-profit organization addressing the impact of crime, injustice and incarcerations, and the author of “Incarcerations in Black and White: The Subjugation of Black America.”
