NW brings in Ferguson representative
ELIZABETH GOLDEN/DAILY FORUM
Rep. Courtney Allen Curtis, representative of the Missouri House for the Ferguson area, spoke to Northwest Missouri State University on Wednesday as part of Martin Luther King Celebration Week.
“Are you racist,” he asked, intensity and power emitted from every word.
The room was silent. Some students shook their heads. Others sat emotionless, confused or curious.
“Sometimes we’re subconsciously racist and we don’t know it,” continued Rep. Courtney Allen Curtis as he spoke to approximately 50 students in the ballroom of the J.W. Jones Student Union at Northwest Missouri State University. “Race plays into everything — everything you can think of.”
Curtis represents the Ferguson area in the Missouri House of Representatives. On Wednesday, he spoke about the occurrences in Ferguson before and after the shooting involving an 18-year-old unarmed Michael Brown. This was part of Martin Luther King Celebration Week at Northwest.
Born in Ferguson, Curtis spent the majority of his life in the city, but didn’t notice the racial divide until he came back from college.
“Ferguson is separated by class,” he said. “Growing up, I did not know that. When I came back from college, I saw the difference.”
Curtis was 29 years old when his eyes opened, he said.
“It was night and day between the good part and the bad part,” he said. “Because of neglect within the city, one side doesn’t have much. The other side gets all the tax dollars, has new developments, new buildings.”
“So, how did we get here,” he asked passionately as the room was once again silenced.
Four days before the incident occurred, Curtis said he was driving down the street when he was pulled over. He hadn’t been speeding and didn’t violate any traffic laws.
The officer said Curtis’s light was out, so he ran his tags. After 15 minutes, Curtis was clear, and the officer said his light was back on.
“That was unnecessary,” Curtis said. “With the aggressive ticketing and police stops, it was like gasoline. Mike Brown’s death was the match that lit the fire. It kept going, getting more gasoline and eventually it blew up.”
As part of Martin Luther King week, the hashtag ReclaimMLK has been floating around Twitter and Facebook in reference to Ferguson.
“In 2015, we’ve experienced a lot,” Curtis said. “Sadly we see ourselves in a place where we are almost right back to the civil rights area. We haven’t made the strides we need to for this generation. That’s why an event like Ferguson can take place. We do have a lot of issues. They are seen, but we don’t talk about them. Largely because it’s an uncomfortable conversation to have.”
Curtis said race plays a part in all of society, but is an unmentionable subject.
“We don’t talk about race,” he said. “If we start talking about race, it will make you feel things you didn’t necessarily know you felt. It brings out things in us we don’t talk about just like we don’t talk about class. A lot of times class is determined by looking at a person’s race.”
Curtis said he does not condone the violence, but the incident started moving the conversations about race in the right direction.
“We’re going to get something out of this,” he said. “We can’t just move on. The protesters aren’t going to let that happen. I’m not going to let that happen. Ferguson gave us the leaders we haven’t had for the last 10 to 15 years. We shouldn’t be in this place, so now hopefully we can start moving in the right direction.”
