This transcript from the “Silence in Sikeston” podcast series produced by Cara Anthony, shared in two parts. If you are able, we encourage you to listen to the audio of “Silence in Sikeston,” which includes emotion and emphasis not found in the transcript. This transcript, generated using transcription software, has been edited for style and clarity.
[Ambient sounds from Sikeston, Missouri’s 2021 Juneteenth celebration — a DJ making an announcement over funky music, people chatting — begin playing.]
Cara Anthony: It’s 2021. It’s hot and humid. We’re at a park in the heart of Sunset — Sikeston, Missouri’s historically Black neighborhood.
Emory: Today is Juneteenth, baby.
Cara Anthony: The basketball courts are jumping. And old-school funk is blaring from the speakers. Kids are playing.
Cara Anthony: [Laughter] Are you enjoying the water?
Cara Anthony: People are lining up for barbecue. I’ve been here reporting on the toll racism and violence can take on a community’s health. But today, I’m hoping to capture a little bit of Sikeston’s joy.
Taneshia Pulley: When I look out to the crowd of my people, I see strength. I see power. I just see all magic.
Cara Anthony: I drift over to a tent where people are getting their blood pressure, weight, and height checked … health screenings for free.
Cara Anthony: I’m a journalist.
Community Health Worker: Ooooh! Hi! Hi!
Cara Anthony: The ladies working the booth are excited I’m there to report on the event.
Cara Anthony: OK, and I’m a health journalist.
Community health worker: Baby, that’s what I told them. Yeah, she healthy. [Laughter]
Cara Anthony: This Juneteenth gathering is happening a little over a year after Sikeston police officers shot and killed 23-year-old Denzel Taylor. We made a documentary about Denzel’s death and the death of another young Black man — also killed in Sikeston.
Denzel was shot by police. Nearly 80 years earlier, Cleo Wright was lynched by a white mob. Both were killed before they got their day in court.
In these years of reporting, what I’ve found is that many Black families worry that their kids don’t have an equal chance of growing up healthy and safe in Sikeston.
Rosemary Owens: Being Black in the Bootheel can get you killed at any age.
Cara Anthony: That’s Rosemary Owens. She raised her children here in Southeast Missouri.
Cara Anthony: About 10 Sikeston police officers showed up to Juneteenth — for security and to connect with the community. Some are in uniform; some are in plain clothes. Rosemary has her doubts about why they came today.
Cara Anthony: You see the police chief talking to people. What’s going through your mind as you see them milling about?
Rosemary Owens: I hope they are real and wanting to close the gap between the African Americans and the white people. Anybody can come out and shake hands. But at the end of the day, did you mean what you said? Because things are still going on here in Sikeston, Missouri.
Cara Anthony: For Rosemary, this brings to mind an encounter with the police from years ago. When her son was maybe 16 years old, she says, she and her sister gave their boys the keys to their new cars — told them they could hang out in them. Rosemary had gotten her new car for Mother’s Day.
Rosemary Owens: A brand-new red Dodge Caravan. We, we knew the boys were just going from the van to the car. You know, just showing out — they were boys. They weren’t driving.
Cara Anthony: Someone nearby saw the boys …
Rosemary Owens: … called and told the police that two Black men were robbing cars. When the boys saw the police come up, there was three police cars. So they were like, something’s going on. So their intention, they were like, they were trying to run to us. And my brother said, stop. When they looked back, when the police got out of the car, they already had their guns drawn on my son and my nephew.
Cara Anthony: That’s what Rosemary thinks about when she sees Sikeston police at Juneteenth.
Cara Anthony: In this podcast series, we’ve talked about some of the ways racism makes Black people sick. But Juneteenth has me thinking about how we get free — how we stop racism from making us sick. The public health experts say it’s going to take systemwide, institutional change.
In this episode, we’re going to examine what that community-level change looks like — or at least what it looks like to make a start.
James McMillen: How you doing?
Juneteenth celebration attendee: Good. Good.
James McMillen: Good to see you, man.
Juneteenth celebration attendee: What’s up? How are you?
Cara Anthony: When I spot Sikeston’s director of public safety in his cowboy hat, sipping soda from a can, I head over to talk.
James McMillen: Well, you know, I just, I, I’m glad to be … on the inside of this.
Cara Anthony: James McMillen leads the police department. He says he made it a point to come to Juneteenth. And he encouraged his officers to come, too.
James McMillen: I remember as being a young officer coming to work here, not knowing anybody, driving by a park and seeing several Black people out there. And I remember feeling, you know, somewhat intimidated by that. And I don’t really know why. I hadn’t always been that active in the community. And, um, I, I have been the last several years and I’m just wanting to teach officers to do the same thing.
Cara Anthony: The chief told me showing up was part of his department’s efforts to repair relations with Sikeston’s Black residents.
James McMillen: What’s important about this is, being out here and actually knowing people, I think it builds that trust that we need to have to prevent and solve crimes.
Cara Anthony: A few minutes into our conversation, I notice a teenager and her friend nearby, listening.
Cara Anthony: Yeah, we have two people who are watching us pretty closely. Come over here. Come over here. Tell us your names.
Lauren: My name is Lauren.
Michaiahes: My name is Michaiahes.
Cara Anthony: Yeah. And what are you all … ?
James McMillen: I saw you over there.
Cara Anthony: So, what do you think about all of this?
Michaiahes: Personally, I don’t even know who this is because I don’t mess with police because, because of what’s happened in the past with the police. But, um …
Cara Anthony: As she starts to trail off, I encourage her to keep going.
Cara Anthony: He’s right here. He’s in charge of all of those people.
Michaiahes: Well, in my opinion, y’all should start caring about the community more.
Cara Anthony: What are you hearing? She’s speaking from the heart here, Chief. What are you hearing?
James McMillen: Well, you know what? I agree with everything she said there.
Cara Anthony: She’s confident now, looking the chief in the eye.
Michaiahes: And let’s just be honest: Some of these police officers don’t even want to be here today. They’re just here to think they’re doing something for the community.
James McMillen: Let’s be honest. Some of these are assumptions that y’all are making about police that y’all don’t really know.
Michaiahes: If we seen you protecting community, if we seen you doing what you supposed to do, then we wouldn’t have these assumptions about you.
James McMillen: I just want to say that people are individuals. We have supervisors that try to keep them to hold a standard. And you shouldn’t judge the whole department, but, but just don’t judge the whole department off of a few. No more than I should judge the whole community off of a few.
Cara Anthony: But here’s the thing … in our conversations over the years, Chief McMillen has been candid with me about how, as a rookie cop, he had judged Sikeston’s Black residents based on interactions with just a few.
James McMillen: Some of my first calls in the Black community were dealing with, obviously, criminals, you know? So if first impressions mean anything, that one set a bad one. I had, um, really unfairly judging the whole community based on the few interactions that I had, again, with majority of criminals.
Cara Anthony: The chief says he’s moved past that way of thinking and he’s trying to help his officers move past their assumptions. And he told me about other things he wants to do… Hire more Black officers. Invest in racial-bias awareness education for the department. And open up more lines of communication with the community.
James McMillen: I know that we are not going to see progress or we’re not going to see success without a little bit of pain and discomfort on our part.
Cara Anthony: I don’t think I’ve ever heard the chief use the term institutional change, but the promises and the plans he’s making sound like steps in that direction. Except … here’s something else the chief says he wants …
James McMillen: As a police officer, I would like to hear more people talk about, um, just complying with the officer.
Cara Anthony: That phrase is chilling to me.
When I hear “just comply” … a litany of names cross my mind.
Philando Castile.
Sonya Massey.
Tyre Nichols.
Cara Anthony: After Denzel Taylor was killed, people felt unsafe. I talked to a lot of residents on the record about them feeling like they didn’t know if they could be next. One thing that you told me was, like, well, one thing that people can do is comply with the officers, you know, if they find themselves having an interaction with law enforcement.
James McMillen: Well, I mean, I think that’s, that’s a good idea to do. And if the person is not complying, that officer has got to be thinking, is this person trying to hurt me? So, asking people to comply with the officer’s command — that’s a reasonable statement.
Cara Anthony: But, it’s well documented: Black Americans are more likely than our white peers to be perceived as dangerous by police. That perception increases the chances we’ll be the victim of deadly force. Whether we comply — or not. That’s all to say … even with the promise of more Black officers in Sikeston and all the chief’s other plans, I’m not sure institutional change in policing is coming soon to Sikeston.
Cara Anthony: I took that worry to Gail Christopher. She has spent her long career trying to address the causes of institutional racism.
Cara Anthony: We’ve been calling most of our guests by their first name, but what’s your preference? I don’t want to get in trouble with my mom on this, you know? [Cara laughs.]
Gail Christopher: If you don’t mind, Dr. Christopher is good.
Cara Anthony: OK. All right. That sounds good. I’m glad I asked.
Cara Anthony: Dr. Christopher thinks a lot about the connections between race and health. And she’s executive director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity. Her nonprofit designs strategies for social change. She says the way to think about starting to fix structural racism … is to think about the future.
Gail Christopher: What do you want for your daughter? What do I want for my children? I want them not to have interactions with the police, No. 1, right? Uh, so I want them to have safe places to be, to play, to be educated … equal access to the opportunity to be healthy.
Cara Anthony: But I wonder if that future is even possible.