Brandon Carr is a junior majoring in political science.
Sitting in my dorm room at the University of Oxford – more than 4,000 miles from Missouri – it’s bewildering to watch the community of Ferguson erupt into disorder and chaos. The city is only 15 minutes from Ladue, the affluent and predominantly white suburb where I first learned to drive a car, played football on Friday nights and graduated from high school.
In reality, Ferguson’s situation is not as remarkable as it may seem: The city of St. Louis and its surrounding counties have long been racially charged ticking time bombs. The informal segregation – between disadvantaged black communities and those of the white, middle and upper-middle classes – has withstood the test of time.
One only has to travel a few minutes north on the interstate I-170 to leave the safe confines of Ladue, where Starbucks and steakhouses line the streets, and reach the seemingly unrecognizable world that the black people of Ferguson face daily.
As a white, upper-class male, I have enjoyed an upbringing of substantial privilege and advantage. I have attended elite private schools, attained membership to exclusive country clubs and studied at GW and the University of Oxford.
For that reason, it would be difficult for most individuals to accept my point of view. But despite the favorable circumstances in which I was raised, I recognize from firsthand experience that the violence and disarray in Ferguson this year does not represent the black community of Ferguson or St. Louis as a whole.
Indeed, despite my upbringing, I’ve had the opportunity to share some wonderful friendships with individuals of considerable disadvantage and hardship. As a quarterback for the Ladue High School football team, I learned about the disadvantages that our players from the surrounding cities and communities racially and socioeconomically analogous to Ferguson had to face.
I visited my black teammates’ homes, met their parents and when needed, gave them rides to school and football practice. As a result, both on the football field and off, my teammates and I formed strong bonds.
We shared a common sense of unity, purpose and solidarity that cut across socioeconomic and racial lines. One of the memories I am most fond of is when nearly the entire football team gathered at my house to watch Game 7 of the World Series in 2011. My white and black teammates sat around the TV, waiting for the moment when Tony La Russa would hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy as a sure sign of St. Louis’ victory.
That’s how I think about the individuals involved in the recent protests in Ferguson. They protest not in the name of aimless violence or the need for attention – although instances of that behavior certainly do exist – but rather as a result of the disadvantages and lack of opportunity they face.
For far too long their interests have been ignored, and their calls for change have gone unheeded. This has resulted in a world where black Americans are nearly six times as likely to be imprisoned than white Americans, where the median income for a black family is $32,000 and that of a white family is $115,00 and where black men must work longer periods of time after leaving school to receive a promotion, relative to white men.
It is not until those barriers are torn down – barriers to education, fair employment, a decent wage – that the violence consuming Ferguson will cease.
It is from that perspective that I urge my fellow Americans and fellow students to view the recent events that have taken place in Ferguson.
