I grew up in St. Louis County, but now live half a continent away. Consequently my attention has been consumed lately by the events unfolding in Ferguson, even though I lack a personal connection with that specific area of the County. And so to get a better grip on developments there, I'm reading the Post-Dispatch online as I have time. Tonight I found an interesting column that offers a calming perspective -- of which more below the fold….
Bill McClellan's column is titled "Hope for a New Ferguson." Mr. McClellan describes himself with this:
Bill McClellan worked as a reporter in Phoenix before coming to the Post-Dispatch in 1980. He was night-police reporter before becoming a columnist in 1983. He also appears on Channel 9's Donnybrook.
I liked what he has to say. Now I don't know squat about Ferguson, but I know when people are talking through their hat -- such as outsider journalists referring to the protest zone as "Downtown Ferguson." This man is discussing the town, not as a resident, but as one who seems to have a working knowledge of the place. And he sees some of the warts.
A couple of days ago I saw a piece on MSNBC in which viewers were given a chance to hear and see the Republican mayor as he strolled through the "other" Ferguson, the one with the "nicer" houses lying above carefully trimmed lawns. The segment was intended to give a balance to the horror that has been visited upon the viewing public of late -- no militarized police and hurling of tear gas canisters here….
But it left me feeling a bit ill. May I say that it appeared to be more than a little bit of a "whitewash"? [Snark intended.]
Not so with McClellan's column, and I recommend it to you. He talks about the hard work that change requires. He imagines local parents sitting around kitchen tables and discussing with neighbors what must be done to move things forward in the wake of Mike Brown's killing. He talks of what happened (or didn't happen) in the Ferguson-Florissant School District when the popular black superintendent was suspended by a board with no black members. He asks:
What would be so new about a New Ferguson?
Check it out….