Dem
47
GOP
53
Donald Trump has now spent about a week waving the presidential penis in the direction of Memphis, and
it would seem he is now prepared to act. Yesterday, he
signed
the official order, and said troops had been dispatched. So, today's presumably the day that Memphis will get
the L.A./D.C. treatment.
We don't have much new to say about these military actions, which are as obvious a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act as is possible. However, we had some thoughts yesterday from former Memphian B.C. in Walpole, and today we thought we'd share some thoughts from another former Memphian, M.S. in Canton, NY:
I would like to add to the excellent commentary from B.C. in Walpole about the possibility of Donald Trump ordering the National Guard into Memphis. I lived in Memphis from 2008 to 2018; these are observations from a Northerner-turned-Memphian, now returned to the North.
B.C. is quite correct that if you want to understand the problems and politics of Memphis, you need to start with race. According to the 2020 Census, the city is 61% Black, but that number alone does not begin to tell the whole story. White and Black neighborhoods within the city are highly segregated. (I have less sense of the makeup of the much smaller number of Latino neighborhoods.) However, the divide is not a "side of the tracks" situation; the city is a patchwork of these neighborhoods, with clearly-defined areas of different racial makeups sometimes facing each other directly across a street. It's a reminder of a saying from the Civil Rights Movement: "In the South, the white man doesn't care how close you get, as long as you don't get too high."
It is also important to be aware that there is an asymmetry in the relationship between race and poverty in Memphis. First, despite what many people might assume, there is a large, Black middle class in the city. Not surprisingly when you think about it, middle-class Black neighborhoods look very much like middle-class white neighborhoods, and have comparable crime rates. However, poor neighborhoods within the city are overwhelmingly Black; white poverty in the region (which is real) is much more likely to be found in the towns and rural areas outside the city itself. But again not surprisingly, it is within the poor neighborhoods of the city that crime is the most prevalent.
The crime problem in Memphis is indeed real; the statistics don't lie. Beyond the numbers, there is a matter of perception. In my time there, local news outlets followed the principle of "if it bleeds, it leads," and evening TV news routinely featured reports of the latest murder, shooting, or major drug bust. In truth, it is genuinely disturbing to be driving to work and realize that a place you have driven past hundreds of times before was the scene of a shooting the previous evening. And people have personal experience. For example, when I was first considering moving to Memphis, an acquaintance (now a good friend) tried to convince me that the city's reputation as dangerous was overblown; he himself had only been robbed at gunpoint twice. (I don't think that came out the way he intended, but that's how it came across.)
I have stressed the interplay of geography and race here because it will have a huge effect on local and even national reactions to the Trump Invasion Force, if it arrives. If the National Guard is deployed primarily in the downtown area, which is where the tourists mostly go, it may or may not make some people feel safer, but it will do precious little to address the real problem of crime in the city. If instead they are sent to the poorest areas, which are overwhelmingly Black, local reaction is likely to be as strong, and as racially divided, as B.C. predicts. And if they are sent to the relatively safe middle-class parts of Memphis... well, what's the point? And beyond that, how will residents react if the troops go to the largely white areas? Or to the largely Black areas? It is hard to imagine any possibility of a good outcome.
Thanks, M.S.! We have no insight into exactly what will happen, or when, but when it comes to whatever news is generated, we think readers of this site will understand better than anyone who isn't a current/former resident of Memphis and its environs. (Z)