Why does Ferguson matter to Missoula? It is because we are so kind.
Let me explain.
When I moved to Missoula over six years ago to direct the University of Montana's African-American Studies program, I was impressed by the many friendly, welcoming and kind people in this town. I and my family felt included from day one. Having lived in large urban centers like Chicago and New Orleans, the contrast has been striking. Such warmth is furthermore amplified by a proliferation of charities, nonprofits and congregations genuinely engaged with the welfare of the community as a whole and the less fortunate in particular.
For us – as a white family – it has been a good place to live.
But I hear very different stories from African-American students, friends and colleagues. For them, the friendliness which they also encounter is matched by drive-by racial epithets, racial profiling by business owners and police officers, and the assumption that they are outsiders to this community. The fact that hate group members have repeatedly distributed hate literature in African-American Studies library books does not help.
The presence of this overt and more subtle racism is not, however, why Ferguson matters to Missoula. We can find evidence of such widespread racial subordination in most any city in this country.
The reason that kindness is a problem is that it is the only way most of us in this predominantly white community know how to respond to issues of racial injustice. We have been too often taught in our schools, congregations and community organizations that the way forward is simply to be nice to people who are different than us.
Being nice and friendly is a good thing. The problem is that we have not been equipped to deal with the complexities that emerge in racial crisis situations like the one that gripped Ferguson for months and the others that have been too frequent visitors in many other communities throughout the country.
On the morning after the grand jury announced that they would not be indicting Darren Wilson for the shooting death of the unarmed Michael Brown, I told my students that the real lesson from Ferguson is that our country values white life more than it does black life. That is what needs to change. And, unfortunately for us in Missoula, kindness won’t get us there.
My hope is that the many kind people in Missoula would recognize first that people of color in this city have a very different experience with kindness than do white people. My second hope is that our schools, congregations and community organizations would obtain the resources they need to equip our citizens to respond to racial incidents with more than just kindness. Taking simple steps like learning about the history of racial injustice in this state and country or diversifying our media so that we are also hearing the perspectives from the African-American community can move us in the right direction.
The question is not how can we become kinder but how can we become better equipped to deal with one of the most persistent causes of inequality with which our nation has and continues to struggle.
Please Wait…
You can look up the facts, but I guess you prefer to hang on to your erroneous beliefs. The police officer was injured by the 300-lb. thug - look it up.
So you lied to them......but then a vast majority of babies killed by abortion, are babies of color. In NYC more black babies were aborted than were actually born within the last few years. So I apologize, when it comes to abortion you are most definitely right. Perhaps you can include those statistics in your next lecture, but you probably wont, because abortion is a progressive value, and progressive values should ever be questioned.
I'm not entirely sure if I could trust any of the "facts" you've presented considering you can't even remember that the author is male. HE, however, does not need to be ashamed for anything because this piece in an opinion and an interpretation of what he see's going on in the world around him.
Michael Brown committed a strong-arm robbery and threatened a person at a convenience store shortly before the shooting. He and another person were walking down the middle of the street when confronted by the police officer, and Brown attacked the officer and injured him before the officer shot the 300 pound thug.in self-defense.
The professor should be ashamed of her dishonesty.