On The Conflicts Between Black And White Americans In The 2014 Ferguson Riot

Michael Brown, an 18 year-old black student, was shot dead by a policeman in Ferguson, Missouri on 9th August, 2014. Local time on 24 th November, 2014, after the grand jury decided not to press a charge against the police officer, the riot was triggered. This decision led to local people's protests in Ferguson meanwhile the protests spread to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and other cities. The protests nearly involved 90 cities of 34 states in America. It even spread to several settlements in Canada.In Ferguson City, the reasons of the conflicts between Black and White Americans in the 2014 Ferguson Riot are the long shadow of early housing segregation policies, terrible economic conditions of African Americans, and systematic racial discrimination against African Americans. Early Segregated Housing Policies had founded a weak economic base for African Americans to a large extent. On that basis, the negative effects brought by globalization of enterprises and great recession further intensified the poverty of African Americans. What's worse, poor African Americans still suffered unequally yet discriminatory treatment in the course of policing and handling cases by police officers and municipal court officials. This is a progressive layers of process which made African Americans suffer double oppression politically and economically. In the end, the conflicts between whites and African Americans were triggered off. Firstly, housing segregation policies implemented since 1916 turned black neighborhoods of St. Louis Area into slums, separated blacks and whites who had previously lived in more integrated urban areas, government subsidies for white suburban developments that excluded blacks, depriving African Americans of the 20 th century home-equity driven wealth gains reaped by whites; in this way, blacks and whites were separated, black neighborhoods were turned into slums, large amounts of poor African Americans got crowded into ghettos. And this status continued up to now, what's more, blacks were deprived of government subsides during the suburban development era, making no generation wealth pass down to descendants, intensifying the poor conditions of African Americans. Secondly, exhaustion of economic sources due to demographic changes, reduction of job opportunities due to the globalization of enterprises, and impacts of the Great Recession all contributed to the poor economic conditions of African Americans in Ferguson. Thirdly, African Americans in Ferguson community have always been under judicial racial discrimination especially from Ferguson Police Station and Ferguson Municipal Court. The shooting of Michael Brown by White policeman Darren Wilson was the spark. And the injustice of the trial of the Michael Brown case eventually triggered the eruption of racial violence, and finally turned into Ferguson Riot.The conflicts between Black and White Africans never stopped. This thesis aims to indicate that African Americans in Ferguson community have long been under political and economic stress. By analyzing the housing segregation policies which still play an effective role, this thesis intends to prove that the eruption of Black and White American racial conflict did not occur by accident. It would break out again when the blasting fuse is fueled. Therefore, a full understanding of the essence of the conflicts between Blacks and Whites is necessary which does good to better resolve it.