I know I'm late to the commentary on what is happening in Ferguson, Missouri but I still cant help but focus on how police departments all across America have become increasingly militarized. But before I jump into that, lets talk about Missouri and why racial tensions there are the way they currently are. If you ask most people what the Missouri Compromise of 1850 is, they will probably know very few details about it. In fact the compromise would directly impact the civil war and some would say it was the catalyst that started the war.
The Missouri Compromise of 1850 established ground rules for new states to be entered into the union, with every slave state a free state had to enter in with it. This would keep the balance in check until 1860 when all hell would break lose, essentially the Compromise was kicking the can down the road to appease those southern states and avoid any uprisings or problems within the government. This mentality led to the deadliest war in US history and to this day southern apologists still claim that it was a states right issue. It was not!
Now why does this play into affect with what is going on today? Well after the civil war had ended Lincoln decided that he would accept the south back with open arms and no retaliation to the states, except Lincoln would be assassinated and reconstruction would never go the way of his plans, the men after him decided to punish the south and still withhold any help to modernize the south. The southern states and some of the northern ones too decided to create Jim Crow laws to keep black Americans in check and hold them down once again. These laws would disenfranchise blacks to the point that they would be extremely limited in their ability to join and succeed in society.
The civil rights movement would once again strike anger into southern whites because they believed that separate but equal was fair and that mixing within the races was bad. Even though it was complete bullshit it existed until 1954 and finally schools would start to become integrated. Many would have you believe that the civil rights movement of the 1960's solved all of our racial problems, but that isn't true. Yes it helped end Jim Crow laws and segregation but as one thing ends another begins. The war on drugs that started in the 1980's focused primarily on black Americans drug use, while ignoring the same amount of use in white Americans.
Inner cities all across this country have been ripped apart by de-industrialization, white flight and an attack on education by starving our schools of funding. Missouri is no different than any other state in the union now, we are rapidly seeing inner cities become increasingly poor and the residents happen to be minorities. This just didn't happen, it was systematic. State governments have allowed more white families access to school vouchers or the ability to send their kids to schools outside their districts. While Black and Hispanic Americans have had to play the lottery game of getting their kids into decent schools that are maintained.
States like Wisconsin have turned the voucher system into another tax break for wealthy families because now anyone can apply for vouchers, where as before you had to be in poverty to access the program. Not to be a pessimist here but of course you know the rich white families will get access to the vouchers first because their kids should be able to attend any school on the states dime, even if it happens to be a church school.
Missouri is in crisis mode and Gov Nixon is lost on what to do, African Americans have watched the system fail them at every turn for the last 30 plus years. White folks can get on TV all they want and talk about community and solving issues that way, but when have you ever heard northern white people talk about eliminating the KKK or biker gangs? When have you ever heard white folks talk about taking guns out of our communities or cleaning up the drugs that are used by whites? Its very rare, cities like Chicago and Detroit are put in the spot light because they are a majority of minorities and all white folks want to do is get on TV and point and say. "See, this is why we left!" Discrimination hasn't left America yet, those on the right that would have you believe that just because the country elected its first African American President that racial tensions and problems are gone. But they fail to highlight the onslaught of racism this President has faced, the 43 others never had to experience or deal with.
Missouri and America need to heal, we need to show our communities and inner cities that we can overcome and fix these problems. Racism and hate are taught, it is used to destroy communities because small minded people fail to understand how large this world is. Of course it is easier said than done, there needs to be trust within our communities once again. We need to repair our school system and to make it fair once again, not this reverse segregation because of white flight, we need to remove the militarization of the police departments and make them friendly occupants of our communities. We need to end the war on drugs and push for decriminalization and more funding for rehabilitation. We need to do these things because if we don't this problem will continue to get worse and the images of Missouri will continue to be seen in all inner cities across America. I cannot comprehend why people have fought so hard to destroy our once thriving inner cities, only to run to suburbs where the drug use and problems still exist.
PART 2 Tomorrow on Militarization of the Police
