{"id":6288,"date":"2014-08-19T21:56:34","date_gmt":"2014-08-19T21:56:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/2014\/08\/19\/get-out-and-vote-ferguson-residents\/"},"modified":"2014-08-19T21:56:34","modified_gmt":"2014-08-19T21:56:34","slug":"get-out-and-vote-ferguson-residents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6288","title":{"rendered":"Get out and vote, Ferguson residents"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>There appears to be a fairly straightforward political solution to the problems that have beset Ferguson, Mo., the suburban community being swallowed up by unrest and violence in the wake of the shooting of a young black man by a white police officer.<\/p>\n<p>The town is roiling with turbulence. Cops are under fire for their gross overreaction to residents&#8217; protests; Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has called out the National Guard; U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is going there to assess whether federal involvement is needed; President Obama is calling for calm; the town is swarming with broadcast and print media representatives, not to mention an assortment of civil-rights activists.<\/p>\n<p>The solution? It&#8217;s at the ballot box.<\/p>\n<p>National Public Radio reported this morning a few interesting facts:<\/p>\n<p>Ferguson is roughly 65 percent African-American; its mayor is white; its city council is mostly white; its police force has three African-American officers. Here&#8217;s the kicker: The 2013 municipal election produced a 12 percent turnout among African-American voters.<\/p>\n<p>The solution? The city needs to elect qualified African-American residents to positions of power on the city council, who then need to perhaps reshape the city&#8217;s law enforcement infrastructure to reflect more accurately the city&#8217;s population.<\/p>\n<p>Imagine, then, what might happen to a troubled community if the city&#8217;s police force and governing council reflected the backgrounds of the residents whose interests they represent.<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There appears to be a fairly straightforward political solution to the problems that have beset Ferguson, Mo., the suburban community being swallowed up by unrest and violence in the wake of the shooting of a young black man by a white police officer. The town is roiling with turbulence. Cops are under fire for their &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6288\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Get out and vote, Ferguson residents<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[540,1008,1617,1717,2617,3019,3201,5137],"class_list":["post-6288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barack-obama","tag-civil-rights","tag-eric-holder","tag-ferguson","tag-justice-department","tag-michael-brown","tag-national-guard","tag-voter-turnout"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}