One City’s Mayoral Election and What It Means for the Glacial Pace of Oppression
Voters in Maplewood, MO will make their choice for mayor on April 2, 2024. The incumbent, Mayor Nikylan Knapper, is the only candidate on the ballot. But one former mayor is pushing to unseat her.
Former city council member Sandi Phillips was one of my first connections in Maplewood city government. I am happy to have her both as a neighbor and a mentor. Like all of our current and recent city council members, Sandi has devoted her time, love, and energy to supporting the community, and she continues to do so. If you haven’t read it yet, she has posted a sincere and well-reasoned opinion statement online — I recommend reading it not only because it rises above much of the noise around Maplewood’s upcoming election, but also because it offers a valuable recounting of the city government in recent years. Like Sandi points out in her statement, municipal governments tend to operate at a very respectable slow pace that often goes unnoticed. The same is true for most of our vital social infrastructure — always grinding away in the background and tended to faithfully by city staff, elected officials, and community volunteers.
Sandi emphasizes this “glacial pace of city government” as part of her point that recent progress in Maplewood has not come overnight — it’s been the result of a long, slow process and the collective hard work of many community members. “We have all been working toward the same goals for our community,” Sandi writes, before claiming that if Barry Greenberg is elected, he will continue doing this same work. The sentiment, basically, is that all the good things we like about Maplewood’s progress came before Barry lost his re-election bid in 2021 and will continue on now if Barry returns to city hall in 2024. Apart from Barry’s failed campaign, there’s another glaring omission from Sandi’s recounting of the city government’s recent history — and that’s the election of Mayor Nikylan Knapper, Maplewood’s first-ever Black mayor. There’s probably a lot to be said about the erasure of the election of a powerful Black woman from Sandi Phillips’ statement, particularly the implicit suggestion that this historic moment really hasn’t been all that meaningful for Maplewood in the long run. Sandi draws a direct line from the departure of Maplewood city government heavyweight Marty Corcoran to herself and Barry Greenberg, along with a handful of other staff and council members, as the means by which Maplewood was going to “modernize” and, unlike the staid government of the past, become “proactive” in creating needed change. She’s not wrong, but her omission speaks volumes.
As is true for white power throughout much of American history, cries for civility, caution, and good sense are a smokescreen for white fear, anger, and dominance.
Does it matter that Maplewood elected its first-ever Black mayor? Does our community’s collective desire to shed complacency and fight actively against social injustices have any real value in the ongoing history of our city? Does anti-racism remain a core value in 2024, or has its appeal worn off since the summer of 2020? Some would argue that race isn’t what’s important. This mayoral election is simply about “good” governance — but that’s merely a polite way of saying that some white folks in Maplewood are afraid of losing their long-standing comfort in a government that serves them first. As is true for white power throughout much of American history, cries for civility, caution, and good sense are a smokescreen for white fear, anger, and dominance.
Unsurprisingly, one of these cries comes in the form of sounding the alarm after yet another white man’s departure from city government. Many Maplewood residents seem to suddenly care a great deal about former city manager Michael Reese, though it’s likely most of these same residents wouldn’t have even recognized his name before a troll on the internet masquerading as a journalist whipped their fear into a raging lather. The truth is Maplewood currently has a great city manager — her name is Amber Withycombe and she’s one of those community members who has long taken part in the collective work Sandi Phillips is rightly so fond of. Let’s say that again for everyone in the back, just in case they haven’t noticed: We have a great city manager and her name is Amber Withycombe. As ever, the mayor and city council have persevered — they have done the necessary work and continue to function efficiently and effectively. Collectively, we have carried on even without Sandi Phillips and without Barry Greenberg because, it turns out, there are many, many folks in our community who are informed, competent, and caring — and who, lucky us, are willing to volunteer their time and serve their community.
So let’s answer the question: Does it matter that we elected Mayor Knapper to lead this work and to guide Maplewood’s progress? Is the historical milestone of her election relevant to the changes we want to see — or was her election simply a box to check off, to look back on as mere history and not as a foundation for things to come? Even though Sandi and others may claim otherwise, in order to answer this question we have to talk about race. We have to talk about Maplewood’s past. We have to talk about privilege. And we have to talk about the real problem with championing the “glacial pace” of city government.
In 1990, the city of Maplewood published its one and only comprehensive plan — an official document created by the city government to guide the city’s future development. There are a few telling characteristics of this master plan that paint a very clear picture of what the city government envisioned for Maplewood’s future. In all of its 53 pages, the document spends a sum total of one six-sentence paragraph describing Maplewood’s “minority population,” effectively framing the city’s many Black residents as, at best, an unavoidable anomaly. The plan, taking a distinctly white perspective, simply states that “their interests should be considered” without naming or even speculating what those interests might be and then proceeding to develop an exhaustive plan for Maplewood that never again mentions or even acknowledges the existence of these residents. In this fashion, the plan effectively says that Maplewood is a town of white residents, run by white officials, with over 50 pages of white priorities, ideas, and plans for what our city should become.
The low-income residents and Black residents who make up this population of apartment dwellers are not only a pervasive scourge on the city but also second-class citizens undeserving of the city’s support.
What are those priorities? Thankfully this is one area where the plan is not shy in the least, stating resolutely: “The fundamental goal is the preservation and improvement of property values throughout the city.” This core goal — furthering the enrichment of the property owner at all costs — is not only the key unifying feature of white urban gentrification everywhere, it’s also drawn in stark contrast to the final telling characteristic of our city’s 1990 vision of the future: that apartment dwellers are a nuisance plaguing Maplewood who must be combatted at every turn. The plan states that the high number and far reach of multi-family dwelling units “throughout the city has undermined the integrity of single-family neighborhoods.” In addition to “problems with appearances in neighborhoods throughout the city,” apartment buildings risk “denigrating” surrounding homes and leaving “visitors to the area with a bad impression of the community.” Much of the plan’s residential sections focus almost obsessively with practices that will “buffer” and hide these objectionable residents, concluding firmly that “future multifamily development be discouraged” and that rental properties pose a risk of “overburdening” single-family neighborhoods and public services. So yes, the conclusions are very clear — the low-income residents and Black residents who make up this population of apartment dwellers are not only a pervasive scourge on the city but also second-class citizens undeserving of the city’s support.
Does the Maplewood government care about its Black residents? Its low-income residents? Since its adoption in 1990, no one in the city government ever attempted to write a new plan to replace the clear and apparent structural racism of the original. On the occasions when the plan has been lightly updated or modified, no changes have been made to acknowledge or reverse our city’s documented history of systemic oppression. Barry Greenberg’s long tenure on city council and his term as mayor didn’t amount to change in Maplewood government’s thinking about race and income — not until February 9th, 2021, when he signed into law a resolution that declared the city’s commitment to addressing racial inequity, over twenty years after his arrival in city hall, and a brutal nine months since George Floyd was murdered by police in Minneapolis and the minds of white Americans started to change. Less than two months later, on April 6th, 2021, Maplewood voters would elect our city’s first-ever Black mayor to replace him.
Sandi Phillips is right — the work of city government is a slow affair. The reality is that this “glacial pace” of progress is a pace that works very well for the privileged — and very poorly for everyone else. Thirty years ago, if you were privileged enough to own property, then the city of Maplewood had your back. They were ready to serve you, protect you, and build you a more prosperous future. A slow and cautious city government is a very powerful tool for those who have long benefitted from the slow, steady grind of structural oppression. Right now, some white residents in Maplewood don’t like where we are headed. They don’t like what a powerful Black mayor could mean for the years to come. They don’t like the vision of a new Maplewood that prioritizes its most vulnerable residents and seeks to tear down decades of oppression that have made those residents vulnerable in the first place. If you want to know why they are so scared of this future and why it truly does matter that the election of Nikylan Knapper is history in the making, it turns out you don’t have to look very far into our past to find the answer.
