But I Remember...

They say if you remember the sixties you weren't really there.  Well
I was there and I remember them very well.  I remember them because
my husband was a police officer at that time.  I remember well the
ten-hour days and the seven-day weeks.  I remember him coming home
exhausted, and in tears some days because of what he had seen, and
what he had to do.

We lived in the Chicago area at the time.  It was a hotbed of racial inequality,
redlining was the norm, and public housing - read hi-rise ghettos - was
being touted as the answer to poverty and homelessness.  Believe me, you
would rather live in the subway than Cabrini-Green; it would have been
cleaner and safer.  At the time I worked for a company located right on the
border of the city of Chicago and the town of Cicero.  Racism in the North 
was for the most part, covert, not so in Cicero.  There it was practiced openly 
and with malice.

There was a simmering undercurrent of civil unrest in 1968, it was bound to
come to a head when the temperatures warmed up, and the tempers heated up.
It didn't take long.  On the evening of April 4th, 1968, the Reverent  Martin
Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee.  That was just the
beginning, Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June and the culmination was
the Democratic Convention in August.

There appeared to be the perfect storm, civil, racial, and political unrest came
together and erupted in a fire storm at the Chicago Amphitheatre.  Americans
were sure the country would be torn asunder.  The unpopular war in Viet Nam,
the civil rights movement, and the deeply divided Democratic Party dominated
all of 1968 and ushered in the 'law and order' president, Richard Nixon.

In the manner of deja vu all over again, we are once again caught up in the perfect
storm.  The world is gripped in the throes of a pandemic, the worst since the flu of
1918.  Millions of people world-wide have been stricken, with close to two-million
cases in the United States alone, and over one-hundred thousand deaths here.  A
number that experts say may be grossly undercounted.

The economic shut down caused by the pandemic across the globe, as nations try
to stop the spread of the virus, is precipitating a recession worse than 2009. The
outcome of that is the World Bank has predicted negative growth for 2020 and
most probably 2021 also.  The United States Congress has authorized over
three-trillion dollars in relief money for individuals and businesses alike.  That is
in addition to the four-trillion that the Federal Reserve is spending on QE.  And still
the unemployment rate is higher than it was during the great depression.

Americans have been locked down, and told to shelter in place since the middle of
March, and for many this poses a significant hardship.  They have lost their job and
it is the first time they have had to go to a food pantry for help.  They are afraid to go
outside and yet desperate to leave the house, torn between safety and freedom.  They
fear losing their homes, and they are struggling with children underfoot, who don't
understand what is happening.  Children who have been locked out of school for
weeks.  Tempers are short and many people are suffering from depression.

And into this volatile situation, was introduced a video of a police officer kneeling on
the neck of a black man, who was obviously already subdued.  For eight long minutes
the man, George Floyd, was begging for his life.  He was crying out that he could not
breathe, he was crying for his late mother's help.  To look on this and not be deeply
disturbed, one would have to have no conscience what so ever.  But to have this death
come on the heels of two other recent deaths of black citizens by white police officers,
finally tipped the scales.

Demonstrations have broken out, first in Minneapolis, where the incident occurred, then
by weeks end in 244 cities across America and finally across the globe.  People marched
in solidarity with America's black population.  It was gratifying to see.  If it were
possible to ease the grief and suffering of Mr. Floyd's family, this should have gone a
long way to do that.  To know that he did not die in vain; that his life meant something
if only at the end.

However, just as the pandemic demonstrated how totally unqualified our president
is to lead the country, these demonstrations doubled down on his ineptitude. Instead
of calling for peace, unity and healing and offering comfort to a nation reeling
in despair, the president called for the military to take control of the streets.  He
called governors weak and 'jerks' and promised to take control of their states if
if they did not.  He called on federal troops to disperse peaceful demonstrators so
that he could walk across the street and pose for a photo-op, holding a bible, in
front of a church that he has never attended.  This photo will probably be part of
his 'law and order' re-election campaign.  But it will also be fodder for those who
thought his actions were sacrilegious. He hides from his people behind a twelve-
foot fence and a phalanx of armed troops in battle dress.

Yes, the country recovered in the 70's, but it took the resignation of a president
to avert a constitutional crisis.  But the country never did heal, under the scars
were festering wounds, that someone just needed to rip off the bandage and
expose them.  That someone was Donald Trump, and now we are reaping the
seeds of hatred and division he has sown for the past three years.  This time
we cannot just apply a temporary bandage to cover the wounds, we must
incise the infectious hatred, we must expose the awful truth of racism to the
sunlight for all to see.  Only then can America begin to heal...all of us.

                                                                          I'm just sayin'