Kirkwood is really just a microcosm of the rest of our St. Louis community and the rest of our country.  The well to do whites and the poor blacks are still separated by money and real estate.  The well to do whites might not like the way that the poor black community lives and the conditions that they survive in but all we want to do is stay away from them and hope someone in government will come along and clean up the mess.  The government’s solution is to replace the squalor with fancy schmancy new real estate and to heck with where the black community goes as long as it is somewhere else!  The anger and frustrations that lead to the shootings last week in Kirkwood as well as the one a few years ago have not been erased by these events.  If the community does not do something to help erase the tense feelings between the black community in Meacham Park and the rest of Kirkwood, something other than shoving the poor black residents of Meacham Park out, we are likely to see more tragic events in the future like these shootings in the past.  The US government certainly did not just stand by after 9/11, they made changes and not just by adding metal detectors.  Kirkwood has an opportunity to show themselves and the rest of the world that they are really the special community they say that they are here.  They could easily create a model for all communities in the country to try and revitalize the poor black areas and bring those people back closer to the mainstream of our society.  Think it will ever happen?? Timothy Finley

Former resident of Kirkwood