Personal: Driving Thru Ferguson
You may have noticed a lack of Ferguson related commentary here at DeepFriedBits.com. Personally, I avoid confrontation like the plague – but I wanted to share a little bit with you all. I grew up in a neighborhood very near Ferguson.
During college, I worked as a weekend leasing agent at the apartment complex that my future husband lived in; the very same that Michael Brown did 25 years later. I traveled the roads you saw on TV – every day, back in the day.
At the time I lived there, the apartment complex seemed to me to have about a 50/50 race ratio. We moved from the area in 1995.
My little family of four drove through our old neighborhood last weekend to reminisce.
It was mid-morning and misty out, and we didn’t see any protesters of any kind and only saw a few burned buildings, like the QT that was one of the first to go.
We saw the memorial of stuffed animals, wilted flowers and rained on signs in the middle of the road, where Brown laid. (I didn’t feel it was appropriate to take photos there.)
I’m not going to give my opinion on the Brown/Wilson issue – I think at this point, my opinion doesn’t make a bit of difference. Nobody wins.
I will say that I appreciate peaceful protest, and that the only way things will change for a community that wants change IS peaceful protest.
I feel bad for my old friends and school mates that still live in or near Ferguson. I have a friend on facebook that wonders why she has helicopters flying above her street in the middle of the night – she can’t get a good night’s sleep. (This was just last week.) Their house values have certainly dropped, and they have fewer places to shop, eat and meet.
What surprised me during our drive, was that in most cases, the boards hung up on the businesses were painted with positive pictures and messages. We saw a painting in progress, this lady below was painting a very intricate religious figure in a doorway.
Click HERE for more Ferguson painting pics
I hope that the violence will settle, and the good people of Ferguson will be able to move up and on with their lives, and have a feeling of security and positivity about the future.
That’s all for now,
krisgo
Posted on January 5, 2015, in Facebook, Government, Outdoors, Pain, Personal, Scary, Shopping, TV, Unfortunate, USA. Bookmark the permalink. 3 Comments.
Deep Fried Bits 
Looking at the pictures, it is quite sad. These businesses did nothing wrong, and I have to think that some of them were struggling to stay profitable. Then a guy most of them had probably never seen before gets killed, and, suddenly, the neighborhood is taking their frustrations out on the shopkeepers. To me, this is as unfair as the shooting, maybe even worse. I wish someone could explain how the looting and burning was supposed to make anything better. The answer I keep coming up with is that it was not meant to. All it did was emphasize that the area is filled with lawless punks, who are taking advantage of the situation, and contributing to the problem.
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Definitely unfair for the business owners – I agree. Don’t forget to consider that there were several people that were arrested that didn’t live near Ferguson at all – and not all the Fergusonites/Fergusonians (?) acted lawlessly.
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Yes, you are correct. Some people are quick to size any opportunity to cause grief for others.
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