An open letter to Mayor Lyda Krewson from Rebeccah Bennett and Zachary Boyers, Co-chairs of Forward Through Ferguson, on the public safety opportunity in front of our region. Click here to download a pdf of the open letter. Mayor Krewson, The retirement of Police Chief Sam Dotson represents a new day for public safety in St. Louis….
One of the bigger challenges that everyone in our region has to overcome, and to possibly become a prototype for other cities, is to get over our segregation mentality. So we can talk about everyone having equity, a better school, a place to go to the grocery store, but we still think in that segregationist mentality.
The study of psychology has revealed much on the way implicit biases unconsciously influence our actions, decisions, and understanding of issues. By recognizing and acknowledging them we can limit their impact on our choices and work against discrimination.
I think that activists are created in moments. Anybody can be an activist. It’s not anything that should be paved in glory. It’s seeing something that’s unbearable and needs to be changed. And it’s long. And it’s a haul. And my life has changed.
Ferguson forced me to have a lot of conversations with my family about ideas of anti-blackness that we grew up with, and ideas about why people are poor in America.
FCC licensees with online comments sections must employ trained moderators or close comments.
Develop statewide training, best practices and accountability measures for broadcasters, print and digital media outlets in the areas of Trauma Informed Newsrooms (Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma), bias and systemic context with specific focus on impoverished communities, people of color, and boys and men of color. (Race Forward #MediaOnFerguson brief).
Require data coming from public institutions to be disaggregated by race, gender, and ethnicity when reporting regional, local, public statistics to identify trends in disparities.
Ensure language access for non-English speakers through enforcement and expansion of Missouri Revised Statute 476.803.1 for courts-related services and addition of statute to include all emergency services, including law-enforcement departments and ambulance services. Consider revision of statute to disallow parents to serve as first-option translators for children in court.
Utilize a shared set of guidelines, language, and benchmarks for philanthropic organizations addressing key causes of systemic inequality.
Commissioners Rasheen Aldridge, an activist, and Kevin Ahlbrand, a detective sergeant with the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, talk about their experiences joining the commission and working together towards positive change in the St. Louis region.
The Commission’s charge was to address the underlying root causes that led to the unrest in the wake of Michael Brown Jr’s death. Race is inherent in every root cause. Eliminating existing disparities for racial and ethnic populations is a fundamental goal of the calls in this report.