Where were you during the 1967 Detroit Riot?

[English]

I was born more than a decade after the riots. I've heard the stories. I've read the literature. But I don't have the lived experiences that seem to have shaped the fate of the city and the region. I'm not alone. No one under 45 remembers any of this.

I appreciated the reminiscing during the 40 year anniversary, but was hoping for grander gestures of reconciliation from the SE Michigan community at large, from both Detroiters and suburbanites, and people of all races. Yet 43 years after the riots, we are more racially divided than ever in this region. 43 years later and there's still so much finger-pointing and anger on all sides. This isn't natural. 43 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the United States and Japan were trading partners and kids my age were sent there on exchange trips. 43 years after the Berlin Wall was constructed, Germany had been reunified for years.

Do you mean to tell me that what happened in July 1967 was comparable to nuclear warfare or genocide??? How come others can get over inhuman atrocities and build prosperous cities and societies fit for the 21st century, and we can't? What has gone so terribly wrong in Detroit?

43 years after the 12th Street Riot, so many people have yet to move on from 1967. What's so different here? Why the blanket demands for apologies from one group or the other? Why? This racialized acrimony in Detroit almost reminds me of how fresh the Civil War still is in parts of the South, but even the South hasn't let their anger kill their economic prospects. There were riots all over this country in the 1960s. There have been riots in other cities during my lifetime. Yet other cities haven't suffered the fate of Detroit, and there isn't this persistent bitterness. What will it take to let this feud go?