Instead, the Commission’s report was a 700-page published bestseller that concluded “our nation is moving toward two societies, one Black, one White. Separate but unequal.” Their solution to rectify that would cost $2 billion a week, about the same amount LBJ was spending on Vietnam. H. Rap Brown, who was in prison on an inciting to riot charge, responded that “the Kerner Commission people should be in jail with me, because they’re saying what I’ve been saying.”
Of course, this was not the desired answer. However, the Kerner Commission did provide an out of sorts, and it’s the one thing the government decided to latch onto as a means of action: Increase the budgets of law enforcement in major cities. This leads to police officers driving military tanks and even a boxy, armored car that shot enormous amounts of tear gas. There’s also footage of little old White ladies going to target practice to protect themselves from that evil Negro menace should it come to their pristine little towns. “I don’t like the idea of shooting anybody,” says one bespectacled woman, “but if I have to…”
Meanwhile, “Riotsville, U.S.A.” splits its narrative between scenes of the titular location and footage from a progressive precursor to the Public Broadcasting System that was ultimately defunded by the Ford Foundation for being too incendiary. The latter features community meetings between Black people and White cops. It’s no surprise that the cops swear up and down that there’s no racism amongst their forces. It’s even less of a surprise when the Black folks angrily counter that with proof. “We’re getting our asses kicked out here by the police,” yells the preacher of the church that participated in one such round table.
Over at Riotsville, a group of all-White spectators watch the soldiers play cops and robbers, with Black participants screaming “I’ll be back to get you” as they’re arrested. The audience cheers as these play-acting rabblerousers get violently flung into cop cars and wagons. There’s even a re-enactment of the Watts Rebellion, for entertainment purposes only. The footage is jarring and garish, but the filmmakers can’t be accused of shooting it to look this way. This is the way it was shot by the U.S. military. There’s also constant mention of snipers running rampant during riots, a falsehood disproven by Kerner’s commission that kept getting repeated anyway as a form of gaslighting people into believing it.
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