'I Love Ferguson'

[QueEx]

'I Love Ferguson' crowd supports city
and changing its police tactics​

I ♥ Ferguson, Mo., resident Kathy Magrecki shows her support for her city outside the Police Department.
Two area police officers were shot during a protest this week.​

They gathered overnight in the driving rain on the sidewalk outside the Police Department, where angry protesters have marched for months. But this time the shirts, buttons and signs carried a different message: "I Love Ferguson.”

There would be no clashes with police tonight, no raucous street protests by the crowd of older white residents. Many of them had volunteered at the “I Love Ferguson” storefront across the street, a nonprofit started to counter the spirit of division and criticism that followed the Aug. 9 death of 18-year-old Michael Brown, an unarmed African American shot by a white police officer.

Those gathered late Friday said they support local police -- to a point. They also see the need to improve policing after a scathing Justice Department report earlier this month that found police routinely violated the rights of African Americans.

“We love this community, and we will do what it takes to make the changes,” said Susan Ankenbrand, a former City Council member and 40-year resident who organized the gathering. “We care deeply about all the residents, not just the white residents. We need to make sure we’re addressing the needs of all the residents, more inclusive.”​

Some members of the group, like Sandy Sansevere, live in historic homes in Old Ferguson East, a world away from the Canfield Green apartment complex on the other side of town where Brown was shot after a confrontation with Officer Darren Wilson.

Police did not appear at first on Friday night, as they had the night before when a commander mixed with protesters. When a St. Louis County officer showed up in the rain, Sansevere shook his hand and thanked him. The mayor passed by a bit later and praised the gathering, which included his father.

“Some of us just don’t get it,” Sansevere, 55, said as she stood under an umbrella in an “I love Ferguson” sweat shirt holding a sign she had made featuring a quote from Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity: “For a community to be whole and healthy, it must be based on people’s love and concern for each other.”

"The problems may have been there, but they were new to me,” agreed Mike Brandon, 45, a local contractor whose business and psyche suffered as protests stretched on over the months.

“A lot of this just destroyed me,” he said.​

Brandon filled his down time by painting inspiring messages on the plywood covering downtown storefronts shattered by looters after a grand jury refused to indict Wilson in November. Brandon loves town events, including the farmers market set to reopen this spring, and wants to see them drawing a diverse crowd like they used to before Brown’s shooting divided the city.

“We want our people back. We want everybody to come back and be a part of it,” Brandon said. “We would like to change. We want to improve, to be able to help what other people feel is the problem, because we didn’t see it.”


​

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-love-ferguson-20150313-story.html

 

[Mr. Bizkits]

How can someone love a city that doesn't love you back

 

[QueEx]

How can someone love a city that doesn't love you back

I don't disagree with what you've posted but, your comments were posted before I was able to complete the original post. If you have an opportunity to read the post now after its been completed, any additional thoughts ???

 

[QueEx]

Amid racial tension,
'I love Ferguson' shop emphasizes community

The "I love Ferguson" store is boarded with plywood against the unrest that has plagued
the city since August. But volunteer workers have covered the store to look like a Christmas present instead.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
​

The "I ♥ Ferguson" shop is the physical embodiment of a place making the best of bad circumstances. Its entire exterior is boarded up, forming a sort of plywood box..

But its volunteer workers have covered it to look like a giant Christmas package.

It says: We are braced for riots. But we don't like it.

Inside, there's a touch of unreality. Along the walls, Christmas mugs and postcards and T-shirts have all been sorted and hung.

In the center of the room: a black man and white man argue.

The black man, a volunteer named Ken Wheat, shakes his head. "I'm not buying that," he says.

He's looking at the new Christmas sweater designs. They are red and green, with cross-stitched poinsettias along the top. In the middle: "I Love Ferguson." Along the bottom, cross-stitched reindeer. Wheat means what he says: I'm not buying that.

His boss, former Ferguson Mayor Brian Fletcher, a white man, sits back. "They are 'ugly sweaters,'" he says with emphasis. "They are supposed to be ugly."

Wheat considers. He finds a middle ground: "Maybe for somebody's mother-in-law."

Fletcher breaks into laughter. And then picks the sweater design Wheat had preferred all along.

That's how Wheat handles conflict. At one point an elderly woman comes into the store and chats about "what the Negroes are doing." Wheat smiles, and shrugs: She is an old woman. She is trapped in an old vocabulary. But like Wheat, she also ♥'s Ferguson. That's enough for him. They're neighbors.

After a few minutes of conversation with Wheat, anyone might wonder if the local, state and federal agencies descending on Ferguson should hand over authority to him, a 47-year-old banquet captain at a downtown hotel. He has no badge. He does have a stutter. But he sees conflict — particularly race — with clarity.

"My parents were born in the '20s, and my father was from Arkansas, where he had struggles with race. My mother was the kindest, calmest person when it came to race," he says. "I find a balance between them."

When the protests first started in August, after a white Ferguson police officer shot and killed a young black man, Wheat identified with the protesters. They felt mistreated, and wanted justice.

Then, he said, he watched as local people were supplanted by agitators from out of town. Unfamiliar people. Angry people.

His heart broke, he said, when he saw storefronts smashed and public officials vilified. "These are my friends," he said. "So I had to make this shift from calling for justice to protecting my town."

Wheat lives in downtown Ferguson, just around the corner from the shop that locals set up to show their devotion to this St. Louis suburb. His wife, Stephannie, answers the door with a smile and an emphatic "Surprise!"

She is white.

The two met 15 years ago, she says, and they married three months later. Their adopted son, Christopher, is black. "We have not felt any problems here because when we moved here Ferguson was 50-50," she says. Half black, half white.

So where did the anger come from? The public rage, in the aftermath of the shooting?

Her hands fall to her sides and her head drops, as though she is suddenly exhausted. "That's the thing," she says. "We just can't figure it out."

Christopher, 10, nods as his mother talks. From time to time, he says, kids at school will ask, "Hey, why is your mom white?"

"So I just ask them, 'Why is your mom black? Our moms are just our moms.'"

Stephannie laughs and stares at him. "I didn't know anyone asked you that," she says.

"Yeah."

"Well that's a good answer, kiddo. That's good."

Christopher smiles and leaps away, already moving on to something else in his world. He has his father's ease in the midst of conflict. Balance. Unexpected laughter.

Stephannie watches him, and when he's gone she turns back and says to no one in particular, "That's good."

​

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-i-love-ferguson-20141123-story.html

 

[Mr. Bizkits]

I don't disagree with what you've posted but, your comments were posted before I was able to complete the original post. If you have an opportunity to read the post now after its been completed, any additional thoughts ???

Ok I read both articles. Great reads. I know understand the meaning of the pro-Ferguson emphasis by the supporters to calm the racial tensions and to bring peace and harmony back to the city. I feel their efforts honorable and praise worthy, yet pointless and moot.

I believe everyone wants peace and harmony, but peace on WHOSE TERMS. Unless the city of Ferguson is willing to do a complete overhaul of their enforcement, judicial, and legislative systems then the past is destined to repeat itself. But thats not going to happen.

I feel that their efforts are misdirected from fighting a bigger picture. They should be using their efforts to create youth programs to prepare young blacks to get involved in politics and business so that we can have justice in Ferguson instead of peace.

 

[QueEx]

Ok I read both articles. Great reads. I know understand the meaning of the pro-Ferguson emphasis by the supporters to calm the racial tensions and to bring peace and harmony back to the city. I feel their efforts honorable and praise worthy, yet pointless and moot.

I believe everyone wants peace and harmony, but peace on WHOSE TERMS. Unless the city of Ferguson is willing to do a complete overhaul of their enforcement, judicial, and legislative systems then the past is destined to repeat itself. But thats not going to happen.

How about peace on the terms of those who get involved in the pursuit of peace? The overhaul process is already well underway. Those who are concerned about the terms are late if they aren't engaging already. If you don't feel positive change can occur, then you must not be aware of history. It says differently. No?

 

[QueEx]

I feel that their efforts are misdirected from fighting a bigger picture. They should be using their efforts to create youth programs to prepare young blacks to get involved in politics and business so that we can have justice in Ferguson instead of peace.

Why can't their efforts include youth programs as well as the things others feel should be the focus??? That is, why should it be limited to your narrow interest???

Do young blacks have any duty to prepare themselves for business and politics???

 

[Mr. Bizkits]

How about peace on the terms of those who get involved in the pursuit of peace? The overhaul process is already well underway. Those who are concerned about the terms are late if they aren't engaging already. If you don't feel positive change can occur, then you must not be aware of history. It says differently. No?

Do those people protesting for peace have any corporate or rich people interests backing them? If not then there's not going to be peace on their terms. And the overhaul process is not going to be enough to make change through the police, the media, the prosecutors, the jurors, the judges, the prisons, and the legislature to name only a few.

It's always better late than never to be concerned about terms. And could you give me an example of your opinion of positive change in history because I'm not truly not convinced of positive change ever occuring for us the common man. Unless QueEx, you're a billionaire.

 

[QueEx]

Do those people protesting for peace have any corporate or rich people interests backing them? If not then there's not going to be peace on their terms. And the overhaul process is not going to be enough to make change through the police, the media, the prosecutors, the jurors, the judges, the prisons, and the legislature to name only a few.

It's always better late than never to be concerned about terms. And could you give me an example of your opinion of positive change in history because I'm not truly not convinced of positive change ever occuring for us the common man. Unless QueEx, you're a billionaire.

I believe the gains made through the Civil Rights Movement/Struggle are proof of positive change through the actions of many including those who were not rich or who had rich people backing them.

If change for you is like taking a pill and waking up in the morning all cured, then maybe I understand why you're having a hard time seeing that there has been substantial change for black life in America. Surely, there is still a long way to go before one could argue that, racially, socially and economically speaking, we've reach the point of true-equality. But, in many of the same ways that those that preceded them worked for and caused change, the people of Ferguson can and will do the same. And they will do it with or without those who prefer the "Change-by-Magic-Pill" method -- but it will be hollower without their toil because the ideas that they could have brought to the table were omitted, never submitted, by the non-committed.

 

[thoughtone]

Do those people protesting for peace have any corporate or rich people interests backing them? If not then there's not going to be peace on their terms. And the overhaul process is not going to be enough to make change through the police, the media, the prosecutors, the jurors, the judges, the prisons, and the legislature to name only a few.

It's always better late than never to be concerned about terms. And could you give me an example of your opinion of positive change in history because I'm not truly not convinced of positive change ever occuring for us the common man. Unless QueEx, you're a billionaire.

Too bad all those protestors don't get their asses to the voting booths.

Didn't you just state that marching in Selma was a waste of time?

 

[Mr. Bizkits]

And that's what I have a hard time figuring out what exactly was gained. Yes I honor their attempts of bringing change, but what was changed? We are allowed to fuck white women, give white people our money, and let the white people educate our children?

In Ferguson, the primary people of power will remain in power. Just like post civil rights era, the same mother fuckers were in power, they changed a few company policies like no racism in public and no verbal use of the n word in public, but everything else stays the same.

Unless the majority of the distribution of wealth is being changed in Ferguson, then I highly doubt any following change can come in a capitalist society.Although I truly do understand the frustration in the non commited people because they are the biggest critics, complainers, and quitters. But I feel the commited should commit with different PRODUCTIVE methods instead to bring positive change.

 

[Mr. Bizkits]

Too bad all those protestors don't get their asses to the voting booths.

Didn't you just state that marching in Selma was a waste of time?

But what makes the difference in voting make if I don't have the money to influence the candidates pledges and actions. Fuck voting unless my candidate knows me and by business corp and what we can do for each other.

And I stand by my statement. Selma was a waste of time for the common black man.