Broken Promises - Broken Dreams

Watching the demonstrations, police brutality and the troll in the White House on Indian TV is heartbraking to me.

I demonstrated against the war in Vietnam in 1969, I earned myself an FBI file for being a member of the Students for a Democratic Society at Dartmouth and I was arrested at the May Day demonstrations in Washington, DC and thrown in jail.

I am 66 years old and I have watched black people, African Americans, Negroes, Blackies and Niggers get the shit end of the stick most of my life. My father was a retired Consul General and so my upbringing had little to do with the drama of the streets.

Especially when you live in the bucolic environs of Norwich, VT and Hanover, NH, right across the river from each other. I had black friends, which did not settle well with some of my white ones. But, they were sons and daughters of doctors, professors and upwardly mobile family members who nevertheless had to face curses, ignorance and snide remarks, EXCEPT when they were playing sports, then they were great, on court. That changed immediately once exiting the locker rooms.

I had had no, or very little experience with black people growing up, so when I finally got to know some, it was with a degree of fascination and curiosity. It turned out that they were very much the same as me, except when in public and getting sidelong glances. I once took a class at Dartmouth on Voodun (Haitian Voodoo), and I was derided for doing so by my fraternity brothers because I was learning about a black African sub culture and belief system and I plainly enjoyed doing so.

I was a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam War, and I filed that status at the Selective Service Board in Lebanon, New Hampshire, a lily white one at that. A community distinguished by its rock solid conservative mind sets and my filing of non-religious grounds for CO status was met with disbelief, then anger, then contempt. I ended up being a member of a class action suit that went all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing that one could object to serving in the military on non-religious grounds as well. We won in 1973 after running the gauntlet of State, Federal, Appeals and Circuit Courts, all staffed by conservative, white judges who delighted in telling our attorneys to "Get Lost", in so legalese words.

The police from those days and present times are very similar. There are some significant differences though. The Federal government has "donated" $4.2 Billion of military equipment to police departments all over the US. Their mindset is much more military that it used to be. Due to the frequency of abuse, body cameras are now having to be worn, just to keep an eye on them, so to speak. A cop used to know their neighborhood, each family, was able to correct behaviour before it became a serious issue and was generally respected. That's in a White neighborhood. 

In a black one, there might be a "token" black officer or two, pointed to with pride by the police chief, but most of the cops were viewed with fear and loathing. Several factors for that. Low income neighborhoods had higher crime rates, ie. more to look out for, lower opportunities to earn and move up and were also beaten and abused by the very forces that were supposed to "Protect and Serve" them. Systemic frustrations led to riots, looting and demonstrations and the armed, public response was generally more than called for. It was also a way for some white cops to get a chance to express their racism at the end of a baton, and justify it.

It is still going on today, and will not change anytime soon. When the bedrock of Trump's supporters are ill educated, flag waving, gun carrying, died in the wool racists, and the President finds nothing wrong with that, then we have learned nothing.

The list of lynchings, shootings, abuses and mis-treatment of minorities is a very long and damning one and it is happening right now. I live in India and I look at the US today with embaressment and guilt, because someone picked up the rock of American society and now we can see what was living on the underside. Its not a pretty picture.