Headline: THE FLAMES OF RACIAL DIVISION THREATEN TO CONSUME AREA'S HOPES FOR PROGRESS
Reporter: By Gregory Freeman

Publication: ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
Last Printed:  Tue., Jan. 7, 1997
Section: NEWS ANALYSIS, Page: 9B, Edition: FIVE STAR LIFT

A FIRE is smoldering in our community.
  
The smoke is visible for miles. We try to ignore it, but its sickening smell forces us to gasp for air. We try to flee, but it's ever-present.

The flames of racial polarization in this community are licking at our feet while too many of us are doing our best to ignore them.
  
Don't see them? Maybe it's because so many of us have become so accustomed to them that they seem commonplace. What's abnormal is accepted as normal. The unusual has become what's expected.
  
Newcomers to this area often recognize it right away. There's a palpable tension here between blacks and whites that doesn't exist everywhere. People of different races are looked upon with more suspicion and, in some cases, scorn. The segregation here is shocking to people who move here.
  
The polarization here is deeply embedded in our society.

Witness:
  
St. Louis was ranked the 12th-most segregated of 219 metropolitan areas in a 1992 University of Chicago study. That study also showed the level of housing segregation in the St. Louis region is consistently above the national average for large, racially diverse metropolitan areas. Drive through almost any neighborhood or subdivision in the area and see for yourself.
  
With the exception of the year that former Cardinal Ozzie Smith was selected, the Man of the Year award would perhaps be more appropriately called the White Man of the Year because apparently there are no black men here - other than an athlete - who are worthy of such an honor. (We won't even mention women.)
  
Socializing among blacks and whites here is at a minimum. We make blanket assumptions that we have nothing in common with people of other races without taking the time to find out if we have something in common with an individual of another race.

A fire is smoldering in our community.
  
It's in our schools. This newspaper reported Monday the sharp differences between how black teachers and white teachers in the St. Louis Public Schools view teacher performance. Nearly 60 percent of the black teachers surveyed said the schools are doing an excellent or good job; six out of 10 white teachers believe that they're doing a poor job. Schools Superintendent Cleveland Hammonds Jr. suggests the differences reflect other racial divides of the area.
  
It's in our politics. Where else could we have a mayoral election where one of the key issues developing among two black candidates seems to be who is black enough?
  
It's in the decisions that we make. An unspoken factor in the defeat of a proposal to extend MetroLink to St. Charles was the concern by some whites that it would result in more blacks moving into that area.
  
The race issue even factors into opposition to the concept of a merger of St. Louis and St. Louis County.
  
All of these are reasons why this community has such difficulty in getting together on so many things. We're much too hung up on race.

A fire is smoldering in our community.
  
From time to time, cadres of volunteer firefighters run in and do what they can to try to beat back the flames. These folks work hard. They interview. They research. They produce reports and recommendations about racial polarization and do what they can to keep them from becoming dusty tomes on shelves. Confluence St. Louis. The Metropolitan Diversity Coalition. Sigma Pi Phi. Harris-Stowe State College. The Danforth Foundation. All of these organizations have done volunteer firefighter duty in the last 12 years. But they can only do so much.

We need to listen to each other. It's time for us to stop talking at each other and start talking to each other. We need to figure out what has brought us to this point and determine what we can do to handle our problems together.
  
We don't need tokenism or patronizing. We don't need closed minds. We need to realize that our futures are irrevocably tied. If we can't figure that out, none of us is going to reach our potential. That would be a real shame, because the potential is here.

A fire is smoldering in our community, folks, and a thick blanket of smoke is slowly but surely engulfing us.
Someone had better begin to take the polarization seriously - and soon - or we're in for some very hot times ahead.


COPYRIGHT © 1997, ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Daniel Schesch - Webweaver

back