Ferguson

This might be a bit long so please bear with me. In the first photo above, you can see people in Ferguson selling "ribbons of hope." I took this picture because the other day Peter asked if we would drive through Ferguson. I'm kind of embarrassed to say that since the shooting happened in August, we've never gone up to Ferguson. (Prior to the shooting we had never been in Ferguson simply because we had no reason to go there.) Our reason for not going wasn't because it's far (it's actually only about 20 minutes from where we live). And while I was going to tell you that our failure to go there wasn't because I was afraid to drive through Ferguson, I've decided to be honest with myself (and with you) and say that in all truthfulness I was apprehensive about going there. Deep down I think I felt like it would either be a police-state kind of town and/or a lawless place. (Which, during the violent protesting, it maybe was - but for obvious reasons we wouldn't have considered going there during times when violence was expected.) In addition, I/we felt like driving through would be somehow intrusive. (Like slowing down at the scene of an accident.) I'm glad to say I/we were wrong on all counts. Driving through and seeing Ferguson up close was a really good choice because it educated everybody in the car.

Why was driving through a really good choice? There were a few reasons. First, none of my irrational fears were in any way, shape, or form realized. Second, just from driving through it was obvious that the people there were trying to make the best of a really bad situation. I'm referring to the fact that the windows on the businesses on the main street of town (West Florissant Avenue) are all boarded up due to the looting and general violence that they've endured, but what we saw was .....

..... that the shopkeepers are decorating the boards on their storefronts with heartfelt artwork. (Many were being painted while we drove through.) The artwork being painted on the boarded-up windows is filled with words and images of hope and peace. It's not graffiti. It's really lovely and pretty and sweet. I tried to capture some of the artwork in the pictures in this post. But since all the pictures were taken as we were driving, they're not the best I could have done if given more time. (We chose not to get out of the car, due not to safety concerns but because if we'd gotten out of the car and started taking pictures then we really would have looked like we were slowing down by the scene of an accident.)

But the best reason to have driven through Ferguson was that it disabused all of us of the images and preconceptions we had in our minds about Ferguson. Based on what I'd seen and heard, I had definite images in my mind. And they weren't pretty. How do you think of Ferguson? Ghetto-ish? Rundown rustbelt dead town? The definition of urban blight? Because that's pretty much what I thought. Although my photos may not show it very well (remember that the reason I took the pictures was to show the artwork on the boarded-up windows only) Ferguson is not that different from most of the places we've lived over the years and where our friends and family live. Granted, it's a lower middle class town and primarily African-American. But it's very much a stereotypical American suburb. By this I mean it's neat and tidy and a pride in the town is evident. Its main drag has its share of older buildings and there are some closed down businesses, but there are also a lot of new and nice businesses, and there is a very cute historic little downtown area. (It even has its own local brew pub.) The asphalt on the main street is new and neat (no potholes here), as are the sidewalks. There is a "Seasons Greetings" sign that hangs over the main street. (Maybe you saw it on TV during the coverage from Ferguson last Monday night?) The houses we saw were modest but neatly kept. The police station and city hall are both fairly new and attractive; the sign welcoming cars into town is cute and says enough about the place to convince newcomers that they're about to enter a charming place; and one can see from just a simple drive down the main street that Ferguson has all the amenities that one expects to find in a town of 21,000 people that's part of a larger metropolitan area - a large grocery store, a new Walgreens, a newer McDonald's, a town recreation center, a nice park on the main street - you get the idea.

If you want to see urban-blighted cities, may I suggest you go to Bridgeport or Waterbury (both in Connecticut). You might also go to northwest Milwaukee. Or try the area of Racine between where I worked and where Brad worked. But if you want to see urban blight don't waste your time going to Ferguson because it isn't there. Ferguson is pretty ordinary. Now, I haven't watched and read each and every bit of news coverage so that I can tell you with absolute certainty that no one has highlighted the ordinariness of Ferguson. But I've read and seen a fair share of the coverage, and I have not taken away from it an idea that Ferguson is anything but an awful God-forsaken place that I should be afraid to go to. It couldn't have been more opposite from that. And yet, people are afraid to go there. For example, tonight I picked up a pizza for our dinner from a pizzeria in our town of Webster Groves. We ordered a pizza containing bacon, but they were out of bacon and we had to substitute a different ingredient. When I picked up the pizza, the guy behind the counter apologized for not having bacon. I said that it was the end of a holiday weekend and I understood why they might be running out of stuff. He said that was part of it, but it was also "the Ferguson problem." I asked what he meant. He said their supplier's delivery trucks don't want to make any more trips to St. Louis than they need to, so rather than get many small deliveries throughout the week, they're getting fewer (but larger) deliveries. Think about that for a minute, because it's astounding. The St. Louis metropolitan area is 19th largest in the country at a population of about 2.8 million people. (It's about the same size as the San Diego metropolitan area, which is the 17th largest at 3.1 million people.) And what I heard him say is that commercial trucking doesn't want to come "here" - "here" not as in just Ferguson, but "here" as in St. Louis - any more than is absolutely necessary. Having been "here" the whole time since August, I think that this kind of fear is simply crazy as it's pretty much life as usual around here. (I've not seen anything in person arising from what happened in Ferguson - everything I know is from what I've seen in the media, same as you - nor has what has been happening in the greater St. Louis area affected my life in any way. I've listened to when and where protests are expected and made a mental note to avoid those areas at those times, although they weren't places I would have gone anyway had there not been protests expected.)

The seriousness of the racial issues - which exist pretty much everywhere in our country and that are once again surfacing because of what happened in Ferguson - can't be overstated. But the "otherness" of Ferguson has been grossly overstated in the media coverage. Our drive showed me - it showed all of us in the car - that Ferguson could be any place. It's not in any way, shape, or form foreign. Do not for one second think that because you're (I'm guessing) a white person that Ferguson is "their" problem. Because if you saw Ferguson for yourself you'd see that Ferguson is me. And Ferguson is you. And Ferguson is your neighbors, your friends, and your family. Ferguson is all of us: it's suburban America. (Not that it should make any difference even if it was the worst inner city, but the fact is it's a pretty ordinary suburb.) And so the problems from Ferguson belong to all of us. And what is there to do about this? Brad showed me this insightful article that I'm sharing with you. It basically says that the answer is not to be satisfied to just stake out your position (which of course you believe to be absolutely correct and ironclad), nor to surround yourself only with like-minded people and ideas. Rather, it's to seek out relationships with people who are different than we are, and to have difficult (but civil and productive) conversations with people who think differently than we do. (Interestingly, but not surprisingly, it's an approach also suggested by the kids over the weekend.) I know it's so much easier said than done. But I think it's really sensible advice, and I for one am going to take it to heart. And so, that's my long but I hope informative story about our short time in Ferguson. Thanks for listening.