Being someone that has lived in Saint Louis for the majority of my life, I can tell you it is one of the most racially segregated cities in the country. The majority of the Cardinals live nowhere near the downtown stadium, they live 30-40 minutes away in rural suburbs where they don’t have a lot of interaction with black people.
A lot of their perceptions of blacks in the city comes from the news which starts off almost every day with a story about violence in the poorer areas of the inner city. Sadly, as a black man in this city, your comfortability levels aren’t great anywhere. With the violence from criminals and police in the inner cities and the stereotyping and typecasting in the more affluent areas it can be a very uncomfortable position to be in.
So, while this video provided by Deadspin is disturbing it isn’t all that surprising to me.
Some of the comments by the white people pointed out by Deadspin aren’t surprising either.
- old white Cardinals fan begins telling the protesters—all of whom appear to be black—that they need to get jobs. He looks right in the camera, proudly, and says, “That’s right! If they’d be working, we wouldn’t have this problem!”
- At 8:10 one of the Cardinals fans calls one of the protesters a “crack head” and tells him he needs to go see a dentist.
- At about 10:25 a small blonde lady starts yelling at the protesters: “We’re the ones who gave all y’all the freedoms that you have!”
- At 16:43, a female Cardinals fan begins chanting “Africa! Africa! Africa!” at the protesters.
- At 17:10 a Cardinals fans tells the protesters that they need to remove their hats and pull up their pants.
Let me be clear in saying, I don’t think ALL WHITE PEOPLE or ALL CARDINALS FANS are like this. I would never want to stereotype everyone the same way black people have been stereotyped for generations.
It is just sad that some white people can’t understand how what happened to Mike Brown would be so upsetting to people considering all the things we have been through as a race. If you want to believe Darren Wilson is innocent so be it, but the lack of concern for black life is disturbing.
I truly believe if Darren Wilson isn’t indicted there will be a lot worse things happening here than than just some back and forth words.