ST. LOUIS (CN) - A clear racial divide in the St. Louis region has been exposed as the Michael Brown protests in Ferguson enter their third month and have expanded into new venues.
A growing number of white suburbanites - either due to protest fatigue, cultural differences, concerns over protest tactics, or flat-out racism - seem to be rejecting the protesters' message, with sometimes violent results.
On Sunday, a Rams fan leaving the game claims she was punched in the eye by a protester simply for celebrating the team's upset win over Seattle by saying, "Let's go, Rams." The incident led to protesters using a flag pole as a weapon; two protesters were arrested.
Two weeks ago, protesters were met with a strong reaction by Cardinals fans outside Busch Stadium during a baseball playoff game. Some fans yelled racial slurs at protesters that mirrored many of the comments found at the end of St. Louis Post-Dispatch website articles chronicling the latest protests.
Ed Pottgen, of Arnold, Mo., wanted to take his family to a Cardinals pep rally in downtown St. Louis before Game 1 of the National League Championship Series against San Francisco, but decided against it in fear of the protests.
"We didn't feel that our kids should be exposed to that," Pottgen told Courthouse News. "We felt uneasy and not safe going down there. The unpredictability of the protests is what really scares us. You see the stuff out of control on TV and on Facebook and on Scan Ferguson."
While Pottgen, who has black relatives, does not agree with the racism directed at protesters, he said he understands the frustration.
"It's definitely turned me off to the cause because they are just not doing it by the books," Pottgen said. "They're not going through the legal steps of the process. They are just jumping the gun before documents come out and the judges decide."
Pottgen's opinion of letting the legal process play out seems to be a growing sentiment in white suburbia. But Ferguson Democratic Committeewoman Patricia Bynes said people with that attitude are missing the point.
"They have no idea that the protest is about the system that is not working for black people in this country," Bynes told Courthouse News. "When you are black in this country, we already know how the outcome is going to be. That is what we're protesting."
Jumping the Shark?
Perhaps the turning point for those in the white community who have been turned off by the protests came with the shooting of VonDerrit Myers on Oct. 8 in south St. Louis city.
Myers, an 18-year-old black man, was shot 17 times by an off-duty police officer moonlighting as a security guard.
Police said forensic tests back up the officer's claim that Myers, who was awaiting trial on gun charges, shot at the officer first.
That shooting spurred several nights of protests in the neighborhood, which included many of the protesters from Ferguson.
But Michael Brown, whose shooting by a white Ferguson officer on Aug. 9 started the protests, is viewed as a more sympathetic character by many in the white community because he was unarmed. Myers is not viewed in the same light because he allegedly was shooting at an officer.