After Ferguson's Fires, Vote Next Time
But the candor and transparency with which the city's police chief Sam Dotson responded probably was more important.
About 90 minutes after the incident, Dotson was on the scene to offer a detailed explanation and take reporters' questions. That's less than the several hours for which Brown's body was left in the street, according to news reports. Throughout the first two weeks after Brown's death, Ferguson Police Chief Thomas Jackson was about as forthcoming with useful information as North Korea's Kim Jong Un.
Worse, when the town greeted peaceful protestors with full riot gear and armored military vehicles, even prominent conservatives were divided over whether that was too much.
But we still see the Kerner report's "two nations" in national opinion polls. Since the Brown shooting, a new New York Times/CBS News nationwide poll finds blacks and whites to be as divided over the police conduct issue as they famously were over the O.J. Simpson case -- which itself opened up a big divide over how much African-Americas trust the criminal justice system.
For example, while 45 percent of blacks said they have experienced racial discrimination by the police at some point in their lives, almost no whites said they had. And when asked about whether police forces should reflect the racial makeup of the communities they serve, nearly six in 10 blacks said yes while whites are about evenly divided.
In Ferguson, which is two-thirds black, the police force and city government are close to all-white. Black participation in local elections has been much lower than white participation. Perhaps now that will change. Nothing gets the attention of politicians like a big turnout.
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E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.
(c) 2014 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
