Detroit 40 years July

   Forty years ago July 23, 1967 six days of rioting began in Detroit.  Looting and vandalism resulted in a police state leaving 43 dead, 2000 injured, and 7000 arrests.  I was 16 and had been in Detroit only for a couple of Tiger games, seeing it only from the expressway and the poorer area near the stadium.   Here in Lansing I had lived in a neighborhood that from 1960 to May of 1963 was mostly black.  I still had a fear of rioting and did not fully understand the reasons behind social injustice and prejudice.  I believed anarchy had to be stopped by any means necessary, and prayed the rioting would not happen here.   As time and life experience change perceptions you realize all is not black and white.  Though I can't justify violence, the riots did bring about a better society and changes that had been slow to come.  Some change has to be forced and pushed in order for it be more timely, when waiting only stretches out implementation.  Many more riots followed and societal inequality still exists, but have been addressed with the need to fix defeatist attitudes a priority.  We will never have a totally equal society, but so long as effort is rewarded and opportunity is given to those who work hard, then we can be on a fair playing field.  Race is not the definition of a person or what they are capable of achieving.  Our society is not as white dominated and that should make for a more universal people.  I have been back to Detroit and it no longer is the huge city it was when it had over a million white majority in 1960.  It has and still struggles now as a smaller black majority city facing the need for better education, housing and good jobs.  In 1701 Detroit was settled by the French with Fort Ponchartrain and their struggles with the British.  306 years later it still has potential to remain a great city, and racial equality is the only way it can get back to that state!