Awakening
I date my “political awakening” to the spring of 1968. I was eleven years old and it was the year of assassinations. Martin Luther King was shot in the beginning of April. I remember the terrible suddenness of his death. But even more, I remember the frustrated out-pouring of grief that turned into riots in downtown Dayton, Ohio. Dad ran a television station there, and we lived just south of town in Kettering.
We sat and watched Dad’s station, the camera crews and reporters braving the violence on the streets to tell us all what was going on. I was worried, for our city, but also for Dad. He spent the night at the station, not far from our home. I didn’t know what he might have to do.
Bobby
That night in April also cemented my admiration for Senator Robert Kennedy, then running for President. I was always a “Kennedy man”, but on that night, Bobby landed his campaign plane in Indianapolis, and went, against the advice of the police and advisors, downtown to talk to the assembled mourners. His speech that night was off the cuff. In part, this is what he said:
For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: “In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.
He not only shared in the pain and frustration of those assembled, but he took that shared emotion and tried to re-direct away from violence, and towards a better country. I was a “Kennedy man” for sure, from that moment on.
Again
But it only lasted a short, two months. On June 6th, one of the last days of school, my radio-alarm clock went off at 7:00 am. The first words out of the speaker were fateful: Bobby himself was shot in Los Angeles, soon to die. At eleven years old, it was difficult to understand such violence.
But it was 1968, and the violence was far from over. The cities burned in riots during the summer, the anti-Vietnam War movement grew more powerful, and the Democratic Convention in Chicago became known for the “police riots” that tore the Party apart. Mayor Daley cleared the streets of demonstrators with the full force and violence of his department. The Democratic Party, and the United States; were splintered, divided, polarized, and violent.
And Bobby’s speech in Indianapolis became a foundation of my political life.
A Single Bullet
I am now a full-fledged, “card-carrying” Boomer. For my generation, assassination and violence in politics is no stranger. The power of a single bullet can alter history; whether it was fired by a “contract killer” like the assassin of Martin Luther King, or a “madman killer” like the assassin of Bobby Kennedy.
We don’t know what we don’t know about yesterday’s assassination of Charlie Kirk, an incredibly popular young right-wing podcaster and influencer. He was killed on a Utah college campus. In our incredibly polarized, social media driven world, the accusations are there: “They (left-wingers) did it!” Maybe so, or maybe a calculating madman with a personal grudge, or maybe someone else.
What we do know is the power of a bullet. Seldom does a bullet cause the “love and wisdom through the awful grace of God” that Bobby addressed. Instead, it is just as likely to drive us even farther apart. It doesn’t help that many of our hand-held “news sources”, are driven by algorithms designed to heighten the drama. Most of us, like it or not, saw the actual strike of the bullet, the “Zapruder film” of this generation. It serves to create even more division. If you don’t think so, check out “X” or “Facebook” or any of the other “news” (not really) sources.
The Divide
Other than his political views, I don’t know much about Charlie Kirk. I do disagree with almost everything he stood for. And I do know that his murder will not further my political cause or beliefs. Creating a martyr to “their cause” never does.
But, like the 1960’s, the assassination of Kirk, the attempted assassination of Trump, the murders of the Democratic legislators in Minnesota, and the constant drumbeat of school shootings (even yesterday in Evergreen, Colorado); tell us one thing. Our Nation is so divided, so intensely partisan and hateful, that those on the fringes are likely to “fall off”, and decide they can use that ultimate power to make single-handed change: the bullet.
And that division is one we all have some responsibility for.
