Rolling Stone: What happens to Ferguson's children?

[bigtree]

Karin Starks, eight years old, joins his family to protest the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Scott Olson/Getty Images

____ After two weeks of social unrest following the police killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, the children of Ferguson, Missouri, began their school year on Monday. The delayed start to the academic year left the city's youth without the structure and resources provided by the school routine, including meals students would normally receive at school. Hundreds of children gathered at the Ferguson library, where educators and library staff provided activities and a community space. But despite these moving and powerful relief efforts to feed and support the young people of Ferguson, the city's kids will begin their academic year in the midst of a collective trauma.

"We're on the tail end of the initial shock – the numbness is starting to wear off," explains Angela Tate, director of clinical services at Behavioral Health Response (BHR), a local crisis hotline. "We're in the period of any traumatic event where it's, 'I know I've been affected by what's happened, but I'm not sure yet what support I even need because it's just so very fresh.'" BHR is part of a network of support services under the umbrella of the St. Louis County Children's Service Fund, a fund created in 2008 after voters approved a quarter-cent sales tax to provide mental health and substance abuse services to the county's youth. Tate emphasized the significance of having such support services already in place – counseling services are established and available for Ferguson children and families to access. Beyond that, counselors are being sent out to work with school district officials and staff to prepare them for how best to support the incoming students. They even met with Ferguson-Florissant district bus drivers. "They'll be the first folks seeing kids as they're returning back to school," Tate says . . .

That sense of fear runs deeper than this month's police response to protests, according to Gail Babcock of the Ferguson Youth Initiative (FYI), a youth-centered community organization. FYI held a meeting earlier in the week attended by about 35 youth. "Several talked about their encounters with police," she says. "They feel that they're afraid of the police, rather than feeling protected by them." Babcock is the program director of FYI's Community Service Program, which helps court-involved youth work to pay off court fines. When young people are brought into the court system for municipal infractions like peace disturbance or shoplifting, she says, many of them are unable to afford the fines that come along with those charges. But when they fail to pay the fine or fail to appear in court, they end up with a bench warrant. The program so far has allowed about 35 young people to work off their debt through community service and keep the charge off their record. "They'll still be responsible and accountable," explains Babcock, "but if you don't have the money, you just don't have it."

From Babcock's point of view, the shooting of Michael Brown and the unrest that has followed is illustrative of a much bigger problem, and not just in Ferguson. "I think this is the straw the broke the camel's back," she says. "There are many communities across the country where the police are not engaged with the citizens, and especially the teenagers." It's a sentiment echoed by Tate, who – emphasizing that this is just her personal opinion and not a professional statement – tells Rolling Stone, "I believe that this isn't new, it's just surfacing. This is deep-rooted within the youth and within the community, and here we see it bubbling up."


read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/fergusons-kids-go-back-to-school-20140826

related:

Uneasy Peace in Ferguson: On the Scene in Missouri

[gordianot]

1. An hours drive west on I-44 there is a small community Bourbon MO.

This small town has been known fo decades as a speed trap. A very small town you could always count on seeing some one pulled over. Recently a local was pulled over and shot at the side of the road. Community reactions were mixed but being a small town relatives and friends were outraged. The person shot had a history with law enforcement but really: Why shoot him? A Hearing was held and cleared in this case. The man shot in this incident was unarmed. An audit of the Police was called a substantial amount of money was missing and the speed trap was shut down all in the last year.

What has happened in Ferguson is an outrage. Being in white out State Missouri I had no or little idea. The lesson I take this is what happens when people ignore local government.

[bigtree]

2. good point about the local govt.

. . .still, I believe it's more about a deliberate disenfranchisement of this particular community through gerrymandering.

That's not to say that there isn't a registration and attendance gap in the black community which needs immediate attention in Ferguson and elsewhere.

[gordianot]

3. I am genuinely angry about these incidents.

It seems to take an outrage to stir people up. The area I referenced is crawling with hate groups. It took a tragedy for them to figure out their problem was closer to home.

[bigtree]

4. 'It seems to take an outrage to stir people up.'

. . . quite true.

As I wrote earlier, of course we can't rightly, deliberately, orchestrate flashpoints and catalysts to bring about transformational change. But we certainly can step up to these tragedies and calamitous events like this one and try and rend something productive, good, and lasting out of them - and we can certainly hope that there is a spark out of these incidents which ignites a movement across the nation for positive action.