The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board

Trivial Pursuits => History => Topic started by: pmcd9 on August 21, 2014, 05:16:18 am

Title: City Planning in Ferguson MO.
Post by: pmcd9 on August 21, 2014, 05:16:18 am
Well Inev, it looks like you just missed all the fun back in your adopted hometown. I've been following this story closely, but I'd love to have your take on what's going on up there.
Title: Re: City Planning in Ferguson MO.
Post by: theinevitable on August 21, 2014, 02:58:41 pm
St Louis is a mess. The legacy of segregation created these bizarre little communities that all run themselves very badly.

Interesting tidbit: Washington University in St Louis was one of the very first universities to have its own police force. This is because of incidents where black students were harassed, attacked, and brutalized by police on their own campus.

The power structure in that city is spectacularly oblivious. Most of the time it's like they don't even know how to PRETEND to care. Maybe it's like that everywhere. They also don't know how to not say really transparently racist things.

That's the thing that bothers me that maybe shouldn't. If you wanted to let the cop off for killing the guy, there is totally a way you could have played it that was more subtly wrong, where it would at least kind of look like you handled things right. Maybe activists and his family would be mad, but mainstream people would say "oh well they investigated it and the cop was not found guilty." Just so completely out of touch and incompetent. And the sick thing is, they act that way because it's never gone wrong before. Nothing has ever happened in St Louis to teach these people that bad things can happen if you're openly (corrupt? is that the word?)

The red-headed cop arresting this lady (http://www.newsweek.com/holocaust-survivor-hedy-epstein-arrested-ferguson-protest-says-racism-alive-america-265703) was one of my customers.
Title: Re: City Planning in Ferguson MO.
Post by: pmcd9 on August 21, 2014, 03:15:11 pm
Thanks Inev.
Title: Re: City Planning in Ferguson MO.
Post by: wombat on August 21, 2014, 07:05:32 pm
Nothing has ever happened in St Louis to teach these people that bad things can happen if you're openly (corrupt? is that the word?)

This explains a lot. They just so weirdly seem not to get it. And they are also slow learners. Like how many journalists do you have to arrest before you figure out what a bad idea that is?
Title: Re: City Planning in Ferguson MO.
Post by: Carlos del Vaca on August 21, 2014, 10:11:37 pm
I sure as hell hope people in that community come out to vote in the next local election. Something like a 10, 13% turnout last time, which is how a majority black community gets all whites in their local government.

Someone was apparently actually doing voter registration during the protests, which some right-wing asshole called "disgusting." Really? More disgusting than systematic racism and police brutality? Or do you just dislike the thought of black people voting that much?
Title: Re: City Planning in Ferguson MO.
Post by: theinevitable on October 09, 2014, 05:49:45 am
Latest police shooting in St Louis was a few blocks from my old house, in front of a bar I went to a lot. People are posting pictures of crowds of protestors and all kinds of different stories about what happened are circulating. Ranging from "the police were chasing a different guy and saw this guy and mistook him for the perp and shot him when they thought he grabbed a gun" to "the guy tackled the cop in some bushes and was shot."
Title: Re: City Planning in Ferguson MO.
Post by: AugustWest on October 09, 2014, 03:22:21 pm
Latest police shooting in St Louis was a few blocks from my old house,

Right around the corner from where Mrs. West and I first lived together.