By Chris Hoenig
Ferguson Mayor James Knowles said he regrets telling MSNBC in August that there is “not a racial divide” in Ferguson, but he still doesn’t see one.
“I regret saying it because it’s an argument that’s difficult to have. Because, yes, there are racial divides in this country,” Knowles said in an interview with Al Jazeera America’s America Tonight. “There are divides between men and women. And I was defensive. I took the stand that I felt somebody was attacking what I knew to be a good community who embraced diversity, who loved our neighbors. I’m obviously very, very much regretting having said that, but I think people, again, need to recognize that those divides, those differences [doesn’t] mean this community didn’t have good race relations before this happened.
