The Ferguson Commission knows you may be experiencing fatigue, but the racial issues gripping this St. Louis suburb deserve a thorough look.
So says the introduction to “Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity,” the product of a commission appointed by Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon in November, a few months after the police killing of Michael Brown.
The governor charged the 16 community leaders on the commission with creating a “thorough, wide-ranging and unflinching study of the social and economic conditions that impede progress, equality and safety in the St. Louis region.”
In March, the U.S. Justice Department determined the Ferguson Police Department had demonstrated a “pattern and practice” of discrimination against African-Americans, targeting them disproportionately for traffic stops, use of force, and jail sentences. The “Forward Through Ferguson” report looks beyond the city’s police department, examining a plethora of issues affecting the entire region, not Ferguson alone.
Nixon is scheduled to meet with the commission Monday afternoon at St. Louis Community College for the report’s official release, and the Ferguson Commission opened its report by acknowledging that the community may be weary of discussing race and Brown.
“We believe that if we attempt to skirt the difficult truths, if we try to avoid talking about race, if we stop talking about Ferguson, as many in the region would like us to, then we cannot move forward. Progress is rarely simple, and it rarely goes in a straight line,” the report says. “But we are convinced that progress in the St. Louis region runs through Ferguson, and every issue that the phrase ‘Ferguson’ now conjures.
“Though some may be feeling ‘Ferguson fatigue,’ we believe that Ferguson can, and should, represent a collective awakening to the issues that many in our region knew and understood, but for many others were invisible. Now they are not.”
The report was not intended to dub individuals racist or to suggest that any institution or system is intentionally racist, but to highlight racial inequality in the region.
For instance, life expectancy in the St. Louis region can vary by more than three decades depending on ZIP code: from 55.9 years in the mostly black suburb of Kinloch to 91.4 in the mostly white suburb of Wildwood.
“We have not moved beyond race,” the report says. “The law says all citizens are equal. But the data says not everyone is treated that way.”
The report emphasizes it “is not in any way” an investigation into the events that led Officer Darren Wilson to fatally shoot Brown on August 9, 2014. Rather, it is a study of the underlying social, political, historic, economic, educational and racial issues that laid the ground for that altercation and the demonstrations that ensued.
Citing a range of statistics on issues including health care costs, life expectancy, gross domestic product, racial segregation, school discipline and the courts’ treatment of nonviolent offenders, the commission put forth myriad policy changes that it says are the beginning of its work, not the end of the discussion.
The report categorizes its calls to action under four headers: justice for all, youth at the center, opportunity to thrive and racial equity. Among them:
Create a 25-year managed fund to “support regional racial equity infrastructure for all sectors.”
Notify parents or caretakers within four hours if their minor child has been incarcerated.
Ensure “language access” for all court, law enforcement and emergency services.
Encourage creative spaces that foster learning, connecting and dialogue.
Provide anti-bias training for the media and “bias and rights” training for all city employees.
Make available medical and mental health services to any prisoners.
Discontinue the practice of impounding cars for punitive reasons when there is no public-service basis.
Expand Medicaid eligibility to 138% of the federal poverty level ($32,913 annually for a family of four).
This report will not be business as usual, the commission insists. It points to a 2010 book, “Flak-Catchers: One-Hundred Years of Riot Commission Politics in America,” in which author Lindsey Lupo studied five commissions appointed in the wakes of riots between 1919 and 1992.
Those commissions did not tackle social and racial issues, the author wrote, concluding that the commissions were appointed merely to placate the public and present the facade that the government was actually doing something.
The commissions, all of which were formed in response to unrest after a white law enforcement officer hurt a black civilian, sought to convince society it must move beyond race, when in reality race lay at the root of the violence, Lupo wrote. Thus, the commissions were “little more than a tool to maintain the status quo.”
The Ferguson Commission doesn’t want to follow that path.
“St. Louis does not have a proud history on this topic, and we are still suffering the consequences of decisions made by our predecessors,” the report says. “What we are pointing out is that the data suggests, time and again, that our institutions and existing systems are not equal. … Black people in the region feel those repercussions when it comes to law enforcement, the justice system, housing, health, education, and income.”