Reed vs. Slay: Race and the Absence of a Race

There’s a shooting in the City of St. Louis and Twitter is instantly splattered with critiques of Mayor Francis Slay. The most recent: a news Tweet stating “One person was shot Wednesday at St. Louis MetroLink Station” was responded to with cynicism. “Just one? It's working, @MayorSlay!” and “but the victim knew the shooter so it doesn't count”. The charge is that the mayor has the tone-deaf temerity to Tweet about anything but shootings. At heart, these responses, and much of what is being hurled from opponents of Slay amount to criticism without solutions. That’s not entirely true, the solution, we’re told is to replace Slay with Aldermanic President Lewis Reed. Would Reed only Tweet about shootings and nothing else?

The City of St. Louis faces very significant challenges. The poverty rate is more than twice the national average, the homicide rate more than seven times the national rate. Is this the fault of the mayor, in office for nearly 12 years? Should he have done more over the past decade? Has he retarded or advanced the development of the city's most challenging areas, namely North St. Louis, where poverty and crime rates are several times higher than the city as a whole? Should he take credit for pockets of urban resurgence?