Ferguson, Missouri: America divided
- By Dan Steinbock
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 20, 2014
The past two decades have been particularly dramatic in Ferguson. Its demographic composition turned upside down. In 1990, the U.S. Census identified 74 percent of Ferguson's residents as white, 25 percent as black, and only 1 percent as Hispanic or Asian. Two decades later, only 30 percent of the population is white, but 67 percent is black.
Yet, the Ferguson Police Department has not changed at all. Some 95 percent of the officers are white, but the community the officers should serve is primarily black.
At the same time, the proportion of households with married couples has dwindled to barely 30 percent, while nearly 32 percent of households have a single female parent. The traditional family structure has dissolved.
With drastic changes in demographics, ethnicity and family structure, Ferguson has also witnessed a significant plunge in prosperity.
In the United States, the average per capita income is about $43,000 per year. In the state of Missouri, it is below average, about $37,500. In Ferguson, it is barely $20,500. In this small city, almost one out of every five people lives below the poverty line, including one out of every four children.
Ferguson is one of the many American cities that has fallen behind, and that feels left behind.
White past, multicultural future
America is as divided over the events in Ferguson as Ferguson is divided over the death of Michael Brown. According to a recent Pew survey, Americans remain deeply divided along racial lines in their reaction to the killing.
Some 80 percent of blacks thought the case raises "important issues about race that need to be discussed," while only 37 percent of whites agreed with them. Unlike whites, most blacks also have little to no confidence in the investigation.
From major urban centers to "small town U.S.A.," resentment and a sense of injustice has been bred by three decades of economic growth that has not been accompanied by equality and justice.
After the global financial crisis, this polarization has broadened and deepened, while too many of the gains of past civil rights struggles have been lost. Ferguson exemplifies a gross failure of economic and social policies in America.
When President Obama arrived in the White House, it sparked extraordinary hope among the nation's forgotten minorities and poor. Now, half a decade later, most of that hope has diminished and what is left lingers like a flame that may soon fade out.
When you arrive in Ferguson, you soon see the city's motto: "Proud Past. Promising Future."
Then you see the flames.
Dr. Dan Steinbock is Research Director of International Business at India China and America Institute (USA) and Visiting Fellow at Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and the EU Center (Singapore). For more, see http://www.differencegroup.net/
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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