After the cameras leave Ferguson

Family members and supporters of Michael Brown Jr. gave emotional and heartfelt speeches condemning the decision to not indict Police Officer Darren Wilson. Their ire was also directed toward the all-too-familiar tone of St. Louis County (Mo.) Prosecutor Bob McCulloch, who effectively slandered the young African-American man before revealing the outcome of the grand jury’s deliberations. Brown’s mother, Leslie McSpadden, made equally heartrending statements immediately following the shooting on Aug. 9. “Do you know how hard it was for me to get him to stay in school and graduate … because you bring them down to this type of level where they feel like [they] don’t [have] anything to live for anyway. They’re going to try to take me out anyway.”

{mosads}That frustration is shared among households across the country and saturates relationships between communities of color and government, especially law enforcement. Families and local leaders find it increasingly difficult to convince young men and women to overcome the trust deficit perpetuated by ossified disparities in a system that has long undervalued and underserved them. Long after the cameras leave Ferguson, Mo., activists, politicians and parents there and elsewhere will and should continue to push for greater participation and collective action that can eventually make institutions more responsive and inclusive. For those looking to the nation’s first African-American president to show leadership, his statements on Ferguson, as with Trayvon Martin, have been largely welcomed but are viewed by some progressives as adequate though stoic and somewhat detached, and by conservatives as inappropriately meddlesome in local matters.

Many have been called to act and Roslin Spigner is committed to doing her part. Three weeks before the Ferguson decision, Spigner watched as the midterm election results exacerbated a similar deep-rooted and interconnected sense of apathy and dissatisfaction. Her neighbors say “I’m good, I don’t need to vote,” so she focuses on changing mindsets by promoting civic engagement as a way of life similar to the way doctors promote good nutrition as a necessary lifestyle choice. A few weeks ago, she began hosting conference calls with activists and leaders across the country to consider next steps, effective outreach and coordination.

For Spigner, this is a bit of a second career. She lived in Queens, N.Y., for most of her 52 years and served as one of New York’s “Boldest”: A New York City corrections officer. Before leaving the department, she began volunteering for a number of local campaigns and caught the political bug. To her, and perhaps many of her neighbors and friends, the activist turn was not surprising since her cousin, Archie Spigner, is a legend in historically black and middle-class Southeast Queens and served as a city council member for roughly three decades.

Spigner was also past president of the Queens Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, a 101-year old black Greek-letter sorority that counts civil rights activist Dorothy Height and political icon Shirley Chisholm among their members. Steeped in social justice activism, the sorority’s first public role was joining the 1913 Women’s Suffrage Parade in Washington.

But it was President Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech in 2004 that stirred Spigner to immediate action. Stymied by the lack of initial support for him in New York, she searched the Web and found a tiny group of Obama supporters in lower Manhattan who were happy she chose their nascent cause.

Spigner eventually co-founded Queens for Obama and helped her congressional district become one of only three in the state that Obama won in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary. She retired from Corrections in 2009, became an Obama For America fellow in 2011 and a delegate to the Democratic convention in 2012.

After working to re-elect Gov. Dannel Molloy (D) in neighboring Connecticut this past year, Spigner is firmly ensconced in electoral politics, but realizes that trying to redirect the anger and frustration of her community into positive civic action may be her toughest task yet — especially after the unrest in Ferguson. There, the prosecutor’s statements at his press conference and transcripts from the grand jury seemed intent on painting Michael Brown as a hulking monster of a man who was unrelenting in his attacks on Wilson, reaffirming stereotypes of black manhood. Michael Brown’s mother, however, is left with the image of her son’s lifeless and bloodied body lying in the street for over four hours.

Days earlier on “Meet The Press,” former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) preposterously asserted that white police officers keep blacks from killing each other. Perhaps contradictory to the caretaker role he feels obliged to assert, under his watch police officers shot unarmed African immigrant Amadou Diallo 41 times. In another incident, Brooklyn police officers yelled “It’s Giuliani time” as they tortured and sodomized Abner Louima in their precinct. Giuliani’s destructive attitudes toward communities of color perpetuate notions of them being perpetually and pathologically violent.

In fact, here in New York, tensions remain high after the choking death of Eric Garner during the summer and the shooting death last week of Akai Gurley in a Brooklyn housing development. Both men were black, died at the hands of police and were unarmed.

Because young men and women of color must navigate these prevailing attitudes, and the institutions that have been infused by them, local leaders like Roslin become more critical. She seeks to show young people the value of their civic participation and connect it to their daily lives, saying “We have to make it real for them.”

On her very first conference call, 42 activists from around the country joined and announced their commitment. That number is growing every week. And regarding her feelings about President Obama as a leader and role model, Roslin’s support is steadfast. “He’s bold and fantastic.”

Smikle is a political analyst and adjunct professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and the City University of New York’s School of Professional Studies.