Supreme Court Poised to Roll Back Even More of the Progress Blacks Have Made in the U.S. in the Last Half Century

[bigtree]

7. I was 5-years old in D.C. in '65

...experiencing the destruction and unrest in the aftermath of MLK's killing in '68, then to the suburbs a few years later.

Went from an immersion in an increasingly chaotic city culture to an immersion into a sedate white middle class as an often singular aberration in a mostly monochromatic community on the '70's.

Going to the south when I was a child was always a jarring imposition of whispered rules and restrictions, like what bathroom this kid could use, or being able to leave the bus and go into the restaurant attached to the station, or driving through the night instead of getting a motel room.

And that's just the stuff that a kid notices. It had to be much worse for my parents. In many ways, it appears they were both insulated and isolated in their segregated communities; both working-class, Dad's much poorer.

Thing is, these things always seemed to be progressing, albeit with obstacles and activism. Not it feels like the very worst of fears are just on the horizon with the president questioning birthright citizenship; engaging in mass deportations; overseeing and enacting evisceration of decades of federal protections at the same time he's openly disparaging, demeaning, and outright attacking minorities in the very same terms that perpetuated actual repression and second-class citizenship.

I just turned 65, and it's been an absolute reversal of what I grew up believing, was taught to believe were my birthrights. I can't help but observe that I've never personally had any control over any of it, except to defend myself, and defend others in the hope that the magic which shaped the changes that brought me to the point of confidence in my country and my own place in it wasn't just a mirage.

We're much stronger now. I do wonder if that strength will result in more than just more friction.