HISTORY
tRump’s Tulsa Rally Was a “Major Failure,” and a Sign of the Times.
Racism, incompetent leadership during the pandemic, social media twists and the power of K-Pop made for a fascinating weekend.
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If you didn’t follow the news yesterday, the first stop of the reelect Agent Orange campaign began, and there was so much beneath the surface I thought I would do a digital version of Show and Tell.
#1. Racism
Let’s face it. If you’re not black or a fan of The Watchmen on HBO, you may not know the significance of scheduling Tusla as the first location for the president’s reelection campaign.
Unlike high school students from Texas, I learned in school that millions of Africans were brought to this country as slaves, not as “workers.” And that the Civil War was fought over slavery and not states rights, as maintained by so many Republicans.
I was a history major in college back in the Seventies but was truly ignorant of how much blacks have suffered and the extent to which racism polluted this country, even in free states. It just wasn’t in the textbooks.
My first real education started in the 1990s when I read Walter Mosley’s mystery novels featuring Easy Rawlin’s, a black WWII veteran and private investigator who navigates through the racism of Los Angeles between the end of the war and the 1960s. My town. The place of diversity and tolerance I believed in as a child, while tuning out the Watts riots of 1965. (Which started, of course, when police pulled over a paroled black man for reckless driving, a fight started with police, and a pregnant woman was injured.)
A major race riot that had to be controlled by the National Guard because the police used excessive force in dealing with the black community. How’s that for plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose?
