Fifty years ago last week, the Democratic Party held a convention in my hometown of Chicago and every August since it seems that someone, somewhere is doing a retrospective of that tumultuous time. Why? Because it represented a fundamental change in the way we looked at our government. Because the issues that divided us then have never been resolved, and that event still haunts us. What has always haunted me the most from that long ago week in Chicago was the seemingly unprovoked anger of the busloads of police that were unloaded on a small group of protesters as I was walking by. I wrote about it several years ago:
Beyond the cones of light cast by the street lamps, it was very dark. I don’t recall any traffic on Clark Street, which was unusual. I do remember two busses pulling up alongside us mid-block, where they clearly didn't belong. I had barely enough time to register how odd it was that there were no lights on inside the busses when all of the doors flew open and a seemingly endless stream of black-uniformed, helmeted men came pouring out of all of the doors, cursing and growling. Feeling like a boulder in a river, I stood embedded on the sidewalk as the police swirled around us and charged into the crowd standing in front of the auto showroom windows.
[snip]
...when I see or read about police brutality, I wonder, as so many others do, what the victim did to provoke the attack. Born and raised in a law-abiding society, where we are taught that obeying the rules will keep us safe, we tend to believe that only rule-breakers get hurt. Surely, they must have done something to cause the police to react the way they did. They must have done something that the video doesn’t show or the story doesn’t tell.
But then I remember that night. No one provoked those policemen. They came out of those busses swearing and swinging clubs. There were no taunts from the crowd; there were only screams of fear and pain. These men were supposed to protect us. They were supposed to keep us safe. When those whose job it is to protect, attack, where do we turn for help?
Today it seems that we are more accepting of police brutality. There have been far too many Fergusons, too many videos of excessive force, too many children killed on our streets by government bullets. We may have become somewhat acclimated to it and in a way, it has become normalized.
But it wasn’t always normal. At least it wasn’t considered normal to white, middle-class Americans, because until that convention, it wasn’t their children who were being brutalized. The victims of the police were usually people of color.
As they still are.