Forward Through Ferguson Statement on Obstacles to #Transforming911 and Racial Equity
As the St. Louis region approaches the 10 year anniversary of the death of Michael Brown Jr. and the Ferguson uprising, we still face major obstacles towards Racial Equity. The recent tragic aftermath of 911 delays and climate crises were yet another sobering reminder of the urgency of transforming the region. Perhaps we wouldn’t be in our perpetual state of collective grieving and forgetting if we had heeded the thousands of Black and brown St. Louis residents who, through the decades, sounded the alarm on our outdated and inefficient 911 system, our predatory and troubled arrest-and-incarcerate model of public safety, and our cumulative and catastrophic climate crises.
We would be hard-pressed to name a single obstacle towards righting the wrongs of the entrenched systemic inequities of the St. Louis region. If numerous cultural and mental frameworks combined with countless policy and budgeting decisions led us here, how can we name one obstacle to fix that would address them all? We might be inclined to name “racism” or “racial inequity” as the major umbrella under which our communal problems lie.
But what does that mean in practice? As an anti-racist systems change organization that was created to implement the 189 calls to action towards Racial Equity named by the Ferguson Commission, Forward Through Ferguson has worked tirelessly to operationalize the legacy and principles set forth by the Commission. As we mobilize accountable bodies and center impacted communities to transform the region towards Racial Equity, “unflinching” has been the motto that has strengthened and informed our approach.
The political and institutional leadership of the St. Louis region has failed to be consistently unflinching in addressing Racial Equity. Although we have glimpsed unflinching Racial Equity-focused leadership in certain instances (e.g. COVID-19 Regional Response Team), on the whole, positive changes in St. Louis have been the result of sustained pressure from residents, activists, and grassroots organizers. It shouldn’t be such an acrimonious struggle to advance policies and budgets that benefit Black and brown residents. Every day we fail to do so, there is an economic cost, but more importantly, there is a growing toll in loss of human lives.
We have an opportunity to redirect the trajectory of St. Louis away from the status quo towards a region where everyone can thrive. This means being unflinching in dismantling the systems and structures that uphold racial inequity. We must resist the urge to work in silos and mend the fragmentation that enriches some communities while starving others of resources. To sustain the work, we should counter disinvestment with justice philanthropy and reparations to communities most impacted by racism. Our decisions should be proactive, rather than reactive, and center impacted communities through every step of the process. We should embrace updates to infrastructure that take into account the best, most equitable practices from frameworks and models around the country. It’s time to work towards transformation, rather than resigning ourselves to living with heartbreak, year to year, from generation to generation.
Note: An excerpt from this statement first appeared in Tony Messenger’s Sunday Column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch entitled St. Louis has to fix its 911 system but Missouri’s rural-urban divide doesn’t help
