Traveling to the mostly white Olivette, Missouri (15 minutes from Ferguson) Julia Ioffe of The New Republic caught up with some stupid, white people eager to speak, revealing attitudes that animate the police homicide of a Michael Brown in Ferguson (located some 42 miles northwest of St. Louis).
Writes Ioffe of her visit to a strip mall in Olivette populated by all-white patrons:
It was a stark contrast to Ferguson, which is two-thirds black. Olivette is almost the exact opposite, at over 60 percent white. St. Louis, and the little hamlets that ring it, is one of the most segregated cities in America, and it shows.
Here in Olivette, the people I spoke to showed little sympathy for Michael Brown, or the protesters.
"It's bullshit," said one woman, who declined to give her name. When I asked her to clarify what, specifically, was bullshit, she said, "All of it. I don't even know what they're fighting for."
"It's just a lot of misplaced anger," said one teenage boy, echoing his parents. He wasn't sure where the anger should be, just that there should be no anger at all, and definitely no stealing.
"Our opinion," said the talkative one in a group of six women in their sixties sitting outside the Starbucks, "is the media should just stay out of it because they're riling themselves up even more."
"The protesters like seeing themselves on TV," her friend added.
"It's just a small group of people making trouble," said another. ...
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And on and on.
In Olivette, segregation is not a problem, it's a solution. The taking of a life by the police: So what, plenty more black people where Michael Brown used to live.
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