"Negroes Attack Bothell, Washington!" Didn't Happen!

1968 riots in Washington D.C. after MLK,Jr. Assassination
 Warren K. Leffler / Library of Congress, Public Domain, 

1968 was a really bad year, Assassinations, Riots, War in Vietnam (my uncle was there), and really bad politics. I was an elven-year-old kid in the suburbs and it was a little scary. My Dad was talking with a friend on our front lawn. The friend said that he was buying a gun for his wife for when the Negroes come.

To my Dad's credit, he wasn't really going along with this. He didn't buy my Mom a gun. But, he didn't push back too hard with his friend. He just sort of winced and said something like, "I don't know if that's ever going to happen."

It's been 53 years now and it hasn't.

It seems to me that if African-Americans were going to rise up and destroy America, they would have done it by now. I just don't think there is any desire, certainly not any plan, to do so. Yes, there are protests that on rare occasion get violent. Those are the ones we see on the news. They rarely show the overwhelming majority of peaceful. legal, and constitutional protests against ongoing injustice. And none of these protests have breached the United States Capitol to prevent a constitutional activity of the Article I branch of our government.

Yet, last January 6, a mostly white crowd of trump supporters did just that. The U.S. Capitol had not been so violently attacked since 1814 when King George's troops ransacked the place. The divine right of kings and intent of would be dictators are somewhat similar. They are not divine and not by right.

Just think about how close we came, and how close we still are, to the destruction of our constitutional government--not by a disadvantaged racial minority, but by supporters of a political figure--the former president who lost and lied.

 Tyler Merbler from USA CC BY 2.0