America's reckoning with racism and police brutality — Michael's essay
In 1968, I was living in a small apartment on Corcoran Street, a couple of blocks from 16th Street NW in Washington, D.C. 16th Street NW runs south to Lafayette Park, which is across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.
On June 1, Lafayette Park was the scene of a police assault on unarmed, peaceful protesters.
They used tear gas, rubber-tipped bullets and billy clubs to clear the park in order that the 45th U.S. president might have his picture taken, Bible in hand, in front of a shuttered church.
In my time as a Washington correspondent, I saw some strange, unnerving things, but nothing as bizarre as the presidential photo pilgrimage on June 1.
In 1968, the country was ablaze with fury after the murders of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
Americans looked at what seemed to be urban warfare played out daily on their televisions. The entire decade was a series of riots: Watts in 1965, Chicago in 1966, Newark and Detroit in 1967.
The calamitous history of race relations in the U.S. is largely the history of law enforcement violence directed at African Americans.
It festered subcutaneously for decades until the scab burst during the civil rights movement of the late '50s and early '60s.
Pictures of southern white cops turning vicious dogs and water cannons on women and children, marching peacefully, shocked white America, but came as no surprise to Blacks.
I never really understood the intersection of Black rage and police aggression until the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that August.
White populations have to stop the reckless and hysterical flight from the inevitable.- Michael Enright
To watch the police form skirmish lines, bang their shields waiting to attack and then charge up the hill in Lincoln Park or in front of the Conrad Hilton Hotel was something of an education in violence.
I was tear gassed and got thumped by a billy club, but it was nothing compared to what happened to the hundreds of peaceful protesters arrested or wounded.
Media later described it as a police riot. It was not. It was a carefully planned, highly coordinated attack on civilians.
Comparisons are usually flawed assessments, but some are valid. In 1968, there was a much-hated president in the Oval Office.
Young people feared for their future, especially the Vietnam War draft. Today, young people fear for their economic future.
With the advent of the smartphone, Americans could see the reality of police violence in a way they never could before: Michael Brown, George Floyd.
To be honest, a lot has changed in 52 years. Mississippi has elected Black mayors and county commissioners. There has been a two-term Black president, something unthinkable in 1968.
But the poison remains in the system. It has to be expelled, perhaps in angry demonstrations and broken shop windows, and the wound cauterized. White populations have to stop the reckless and hysterical flight from the inevitable.
After Detroit, Lyndon Johnson created the national Advisory Commission on Civil Disorder.
Its most disturbing and now famous finding: "Our nation is moving towards two societies; one Black, one white, separate and unequal."
That seems to be where the United States is at this hour.
James Baldwin, the most eloquent essayist of the age put it best. He wrote at a time when "Negro" was the term of choice: "Whether I like it or not or whether you like it or not, we are bound together forever. What is happening to every Negro in the country at any time is happening to you. We are part of each other. There is no way around this."
Click 'listen' above to hear the full essay.
