the citizens or perhaps some sort of move towards community policing because obviously one of the key problems here is you have an overwhelmingly white police force in a 67% african-american city. all of those things presumably based on what ferguson has said they will agree to. if they don t, the justice department can go to court and get a judge to force changes on the police department. quickly, how do they know the race? these are relatively minor infractions. they keep a record if you re african-american, you re caucasi caucasian, asian, do they keep a traffic violation record of that? that s surprising about traffic violations. certainly for arrests. you re caught speeding, they keep a record like that? so it appears because they ve talked about, they have the the statistics there and the statistics are indicative of a
steve spp there s one other small element not small but tangenti tangential. we ve talked guys talk a lot on the show the last few days about the president s speech about trayvon martin and about the need to be more inclusive and make sure that prosperity is more fair more shared. detroit is an 83% african-american city. and if we want to do something to help a group of our fellow citizens who have had a really tough time, detroit would be a good place to start. mika, if i could wish one thing for detroit, would be that google, apple, microsoft would announce tomorrow that they re going to make investments in the inner city there, that the university of michigan would open up an engineering, a science and technology facility. those kinds of moves again, this is not a cure-all. it s not instant, but that s how you start to bring a city back. you know, i was wondering, thomas, quickly, you know, with the twinkie story, they basically broke the union here. the benefits are g
him maybe we could give him a pass. but you only missed a couple things. he also said that this president only knows how to turn us into detroit, make us like detroit, distressed african-american city, and he also made this crazy reference i believe in the same speech in georgia saying that this election is as important as 1860, which is when we elected abraham lincoln, which led the south to secede over slavery. i don t know what other association with 1860 anybody could have sitting in georgia. so it s a string of racial dog whistles that adds up to it doesn t even feel like coded racism anymore. it feels like racism. michael, does any republican contender have to go down this road? i mean, to solidify the base in a very sick manner? and it seems like we re the only ones that are calling them out on this. sure. i think there is a real
detroit, make us like detroit, distressed african-american city, and he also made this crazy reference i believe in the same speech in georgia saying that this election is as important as 1860, which is when we elected abraham lincoln, which led the south to secede over slavery. i don t know what other association with 1860 anybody could have sitting in georgia. so it s a string of racial dog whistles that adds up to it doesn t even feel like coded racism anymore. it feels like racism. michael, does any republican contender have to go down this road? i mean, to solidify the base in a very sick manner? and it seems like we re the only ones that are calling them out on this. sure. i think there is a real parallel here between what jim demint said and what newt consistently says as joan
you won t be favored. i love that point. let me come back to you for a moment and ask you in part about that. here is ferguson a 70% african-american city that s never had a black mayor. has only two black councilmen. an election is coming up. will this be a status quo election that will favor the status quo and behave in the neutral way, or is this going to be the first real change election? will people show up and pick different kinds of officials? that s the question. and i hope that the answer is that people are awakened by what we have seen and there s a change in behavior where people show up and vote in large numbers and turn the population majority into a voting majority. there s an opportunity here to get three new voices on the city council. the city council is who selects the new city manager. so it is a powerful body and