Ferguson and other Normandy suburbs outside St. Louis were wealthy middle-class areas, however, the population’s racial split caused severe consequences for their economy. After African Americans arrived in the area, the native citizens tried to apply segregative practices by, for example, refusing to provide real estate in certain places to keep them “whites only” (Rothstein 165). While suburban areas represent stability and safety, the urban ones are accosted with poverty and minority-occupied space (Rios 185). In Ferguson, two-thirds of the population are African Americans who represent the minority group (Rothstein 166). Moreover, the unemployment level is high, and conflicts such as Michael Brown’s shot in August 2014 make the area unsafe (The New York Times). Consequently, Ferguson and other Normandy suburbs cannot be identified as suburban areas as they do not comply with its concept.
Policing practices reflect the areas’ social structure and usually are a significant source of a city’s financing. Ta-Nehisi Coates (2014) states that in Ferguson, “with primarily white police forces that rely disproportionately on traffic citation revenue, blacks are pulled over, cited and arrested in numbers far exceeding their population share.” Indeed, the regulative policy became the reflection of a racial conflict in the city, and Michael Brown, killed by a policeman, revealed the urgency to address the situation.
Police officers apply closer surveillance for the minority group representatives, and the regulative actions towards them are rather aggressive. When Michael Brown refused to move from the middle of the street to the sidewalk, he was shot (The New York Times). The police’s control of public places remains the same for the last 50 years as Aden Allen, one of the first African Americans who lived in Ferguson, describes it. Rothstein (2015) cites Allen: “I’ve been stopped, searched, and I don’t mean searched laying across the hood of a car. And then told after they found nothing that my tail light bulb was burned out” (171). Racially-biased policing control of public places caused deaths of innocent people and civil rights protests in multiple cities nationwide.
Works Cited
“Michael Brown’s Shooting and Its Immediate Aftermath in Ferguson.” The New York Times, 2014. Web.
Rios, Jodi. “Everyday Racialization: Contesting Space and Identity in Suburban St. Louis.” Making Suburbia: New Histories of Everyday America, 2015, pp. 185-207.
Rothstein, Richard. “The Making of Ferguson.” Journal of Affordable Housing & Community Development Law, vol. 24, no. 2, 2015, pp. 165-204.
Ta-Nehisi Coates. “The Racist Housing Policies that Built Ferguson.”The Atlantic, 2014.