“We know that talking about race makes a lot of people uncomfortable,” says the report, which is titled “Forward Through Ferguson: A Path Toward Racial Equity.” “But make no mistake: This is about race.”

Panel Studying Racial Divide in Missouri Presents a Blunt Picture of Inequity

By MONICA DAVEYSEPT. 14, 2015, The New York Times

In a 198-page report to be made public in Ferguson, Mo., on Monday afternoon, the commission lays out goals that are ambitious, wide ranging and, in many cases, politically delicate. Among 47 top priorities, the group calls for increasing the minimum wage, expanding eligibility for Medicaid and consolidating the patchwork of 60 police forces and 81 municipal courts that cover St. Louis and its suburbs.

The commission offers a blunt, painful picture of racial inequity in the region. Black motorists were 75 percent more likely to be pulled over for traffic stops in Missouri than whites last year, the report notes. The average life expectancy in one mostly black suburb, Kinloch, is more than three decades less than in the mostly white suburb of Wildwood, the report finds. And 14.3 percent of black elementary students in Missouri were suspended at least once during a recent school year, compared with 1.8 percent of white students.
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