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‘I Am Halfway from Being Crazy’ First the pandemic, then the protests. A young mother locks her doors Written by
JEANNETTE COOPERMAN This story is part of the 63106 Project and produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. Additional support provided by the St. Louis Press Club.
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quinting to read an ingredients label at the grocery store, Courtnesha Rogers breaks down. Tears stream down her face and blur the print. he stands there, sni ing it all back, trying to pull herself together as other shoppers perhaps concerned about COVID-19 make a wide detour around her. Her friend’s death would have been easier to take if it were COVID-19, she thinks. Two days ago, Marcia, a close friend since high school, was in a car with some guy she was probably head over heels in love with. Then, for some reason Rogers is sure had nothing to do with Marcia, bullets strafed the car. The guy is in critical condition. Marcia is dead. Rogers hasn’t yet told her kids why she keeps crying, or why she’s been pulling up photos of Marcia — always laughing, even when it was wildly inappropriate, and sweet and so, so beautiful. “More beauty than brains,” Rogers would tease her, when those giggles erupted at the worst possible time. Nobody hated that girl. She never even argued; if she got mad, she was so emotional, she’d just burst into tears. It’s only been two days, and the shock hasn’t lifted yet. Rogers keeps thinking she could call and Marcia would answer. She’ll reach for her phone to send a text, then feel a rock sink inside her belly, because she knows Marcia
Courtnesha Rogers with her children (from left) Angelino, two, and four-year-olds Angele and Angelo. Rogers is eager for them to start school again, but wonders about the measures that will be taken to keep them safe. | WILEY PRICE/ST. LOUIS AMERICAN isn’t going to text back. At least she didn’t have kids, so that’s a little less grief to weigh on the world. Rogers pulls her eldest ngelo, nearly five years old, “the wild wind,” bright with energy — against her hip, then loops her arm around her solemn, reserved little girl, Angele, also four. The baby, Angelino, two, is burbling in his own happy world, oblivious. She is desperate to keep these This is the second chapter in the story of Courtnesha Rogers, a 24-year-old, single mother of three who is coping with the pandemic in a neighborhood plagued by chronic illness and much shorter life spans than those in predominantly white neighborhoods. Since March, Rogers has had to put her education and career aspirations on hold while she cares for her children 24/7 in her apartment in Old North. Before Ferguson Beyond Ferguson, a nonprofit racial equity storytelling project, is telling the story of families in 63106 one by one over the course of the pandemic. You can sign up for email notification of future stories and find an archive of other stories that have appeared in St. Louis media at beforefergusonbeyondferguson.com.
kids safe. She thinks of the protesters she’s heard yelling that the police gassed their baby. Why would you take your baby to a protest? The police can’t see a baby in those crowds. “I’m gonna stay off social media,” she tells me. She’s home now, the groceries unpacked, and we’re speaking by phone. “I’ve spoken my points. I’m with the civilized protesting, but I feel like the rioting is ridiculous. The looting is ridiculous. And me being black, I was just called a coon for saying so.” She has to define it for me ’ve heard of the word as a white racist’s slur, but now, she says, it’s “a black person that doesn’t like black people.” Which couldn’t be further from the truth. “We are protesting for black rights, but in my city, they are vandalizing black-owned stores! And I’m trying to go to the grocery store and they are burning stores. Things are going on downtown because they believe this is where city money is. Just go to the police department! That’s who you’re mad at! Why are all these other businesses put in jeopardy? Just because you have a business does not mean you can afford to have
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it insured.” The rioters and looters aren’t all black, she adds. She’s seen other people of color and plenty of Caucasians in that mix, too. “I’ve also seen protests where white people stood with the black people, and that was really cool. And it was peaceful.” Still, she doesn’t trust that blacks and whites can live side by side. “I lived in south St. Louis, and there were a lotta, lotta Mexican people. The Mexicans don’t bother no one. They always knew how to help you do something. But black and white neighborhoods? Maybe not. As we just seen, a black man joggin’ and he gets shot. We can’t do nothing. We can’t jog. This is not ending.” And meanwhile, she’s lost her friend. “And my community does not organize a protest when there is black-on-black violence. When another black mother is killed in front of her kids. Just two weeks ago, a girl got killed. Why don’t we stand and protest and go crazy against these things, too?” Sure, she knows black people in the community who work to end that sort of violence, too, but their
JUNE 17-23, 2020
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