Ferguson Files: Justice, Just this Once.

Today it’s 6 months since Michael Brown died, and we’re still counting.  Because nothing, not one thing has changed.  Nothing substantial anyway.   Oh, there’s been a few promises of businesses dedicating a project or office to be in Ferguson.  Some contractor has employed 50 people doing intake for the ACA Health Plans but he, and the menial jobs will be gone in a few days.  A grant finally came in to pay for the businesses that haven’t yet demolished their damaged properties to do so.  And, the City of St. Louis police department has shot more young black men.  And that same City?  Yeah, they are about take and demolish a historical, but black populated, neighbourhood thereby rendering 90 people homeless.  In a city that is trying to shut down it’s only dedicated homeless shelter.

Are you still with me?

The flip side of this is the 3.7 MILLION dollars that walked away from Ferguson and North County when the professional organizers , politicians, and not for profits took their cut of “fundraiser” money and ghosted.  Corruption and graft reigns wherever money is goal, not actually helping people and communities. So yes, both “sides” have added to the frustrated fury that is again building in the North STL City/County

Last night, during a conversation with a newcomer to the area, he asked me, “Why were they surprised at the grand jury finding?  Didn’t they know?”  I tried so very hard to explain to him that I’d asked the same question, of fellow protesters and myself, and what’d I’d found was:  We still, despite statistics, polls, and personal experiences, we still had a grain of hope.  We hoped, that, just once, just the one time, maybe, just maybe the “justice system” would work the way we’ve all been told it should.  That didn’t happen.  At least not in the view of most people I’ve talked to about this.  All they wanted was a public trial.  Not the monstrously conducted charade of a “transparent” presentation to a grand jury by  prosecutor, Bob McCulloch , that involved known perjurers, liars and fraudulent “witnesses and evidence.  Justice was all we were and still are, asking for.  Justice, just this once.