Reclaiming Our Way promoting the well-being of African American children & families

Ferguson and the DOJ Report: Racism, Denial and the Triumph of Non-Reason

The recent report of the Department of Justice documenting the racially targeted policies and practices of the Ferguson (Missouri) government operation is one of few opportunities this country gets to look at the inner workings of individual, institutional and structural racism. It's not new information by far, as many of us live with some version of this reality on a daily basis, albeit not all of us with this level of overt intensity. Nonetheless, the unique thing here is that it rarely gets documented with this level of detail.

Unfortunately, if the thinking being expressed by some of the white city residents in this Huffington Post article - and at least one running for elected office no less - is par for the course in terms of the general thought pattern of other whites in Ferguson, then it would seem there's a long road to travel if one hopes to reason with them.

One of the sentiments expressed about the recent DOJ report:

"They tried to go after Officer Wilson,” McGrath said in an interview after the debate on Monday, referring to Darren Wilson, the officer who shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown on Aug. 9, 2014. “When they couldn’t do that, they went after the city."

It gets better:

"I may be a silly old man in all of this, but I don’t think we have a big race issue here,” he said in an interview after the meeting, which was interrupted several times by other white residents who wanted to thank him and offer their support. “We have an issue with that part of town and they’ve been a bad part of town for a long time, sadly."

And better still:

"A lot of the problems with that report is it’s just statistics,” said McGrath. “If you’re the guy pushing the guy to the hall of fame, you’re going to use the statistics that’s going to make him look like the best basketball player ever, and that’s what the report did."

As a trained researcher, I admit that I have a greater appreciation for data and statistics than most. But whether I like them or not is irrelevant. Statistics are numbers that shed light on a particular phenomenon. Whether you like them or not is of no relevance. They are what they are. They can be used for all kinds of purposes, but if they are accurate, then they are accurate. The numbers don't have feelings.  They just exist. And while they don't tell an entire story, they do tell at least a part of the story.

This resident talks about the data, and more specifically the implications of the data, as if this is about a public opinion contest. The data describing the unconstitutional government operation in Ferguson, Missouri show racial discrimination. Not only a racial disparity in outcome, but the combined statistics and other information collected and reported by the DOJ reveal a deliberate targeting and exploitation of African Americans.

The fact that some people don't recognize this is not a matter of differences in opinion. It's a simple refusal - or perhaps an inability, which has different implications altogether - to understand the use of facts in revealing an aspect of reality one doesn't want to agree with.

This thought process, which isn't unusual (think the racialized debates about President Obama by members of Congress), is the real danger of living in a society where elected officials are elected and public policy is shaped based on ideas about the world people want to believe are true, despite evidence to the contrary.

While the DOJ report is helpful in pushing for institutional policy and practice reforms, the work of undoing this deeper kind of ignorance and racist thinking is far harder, but will continue to be necessary, to ensure some level of justice for our people in this country.

Elected officials shape laws, and neither logic nor morality are a given in the process. Every aspect of our work to undo racism and its deep impact on this society must continue.