Whose Streets?

With the recent #blackout tuesday taking social media by storm, I too feel the need to reflect and revisit crucial moments of unrest in recent history.

I grew up in suburban Missouri. I had a few good friends who were half-black, but I largely lived in an insulated, middle class environment where racial tensions were out of sight and mind.

My appreciation for hip hop, Jazz, James Baldwin, Dave Chapelle, and Ta-Nehisi Coates has brought me baby steps closer to appreciating black culture over the years. But there is still a lot of fetishization on my part.

Overall, my laziness has kept race on the outskirts of understanding. And perhaps it should always be at the outskirts of understanding - me being a white man who will never truly understand the struggle of the African American in a America that doesn't give our black neighbors the time of day.

I have learned to treat racial understanding like Zen. The impossibility of understanding means the process is both the journey and the endpoint. The moment I begin to think that I "understand" is the moment I get lazy again.

Rewatching this movie, and being reminded of what happened right down the street from me in Ferguson, has given me a momentary respite from laziness. And I hope watching Whose Streets will give you the same chance for reflection.

The footage is so valuable. There is no story there. Still, the footage is powerful. I have no idea if the images were carefully edited to show the people in the streets all of African descent and the police all of European descent.

The sad part comes later. Poor people exploited.

Exploited by the thieves and robbers who make use of the revolt to destroy property. Not only they disgrace the manifestation, but they will make the lives of the people living there even worse without shops and restaurants nearby.

Exploited by the police. The police who does not care or interfere with the problems of the people living there only to ask for more money, more wages, more equipment and bigger pensions.

Exploited by the speakers. Young men and women taking about "our kids". Even if the "kid" was quite an adult. Progressive speakers who care about their possible speaking engagements and TV shows. Speakers who put salt on the wounds in the names of "being united". History shows these people usually move beyond the racial lines, in low crime towns and keep talking about the suffering while sending their kids to private schools.

Exploited by the film makers who get to travel and walk the documentary.

And the people are left there. With less police. Less places to shop. Less employments opportunities nearby.

This film entirely changed the way I saw Ferguson and how the death of Mike Brown impacted the local community. Please watch this film.

I have to say that the director has to take the blame for using this opportunity to put together a poor documentary. There was no backstory on Michael Brown, well not a Knouff! Also a lot of video camcorder phone footage was used that was pointless. There was no investigative investigative journalism and the story wasn't linked together properly. For those who don't know anything about Michael Brown this story would be confusing it seems it was just made for the people of Ferguson who were aware of the story anyway. Really poor effort and missed opportunity by Sabaah The Director. Shame because it should have been a powerful story.

Great start for Director, strong topic. Gave me motive to be more active as activist