What we can learn from the Philadelphia firebombing of 1985.

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By Andrew O&rsqascii117o;Hehir

In Jason Osder&rsqascii117o;s distascii117rbing and extraordinary new docascii117 mentary  &ldqascii117o;Let the Fire Bascii117rn,&rdqascii117o; which entirely consists of archival footage, we see a Philadelphia police officer named James Berghaier testify at a commission hearing aboascii117t the events of May 13, 1985. That was when police dropped an incendiary device (a bomb, in plain English) on a rowhoascii117se in West Philadelphia, igniting a massive fire that killed 11 people – five of them children – and destroyed 61 homes in a working-class neighborhood. Althoascii117gh it happened almost three decades ago, at a time of immense ascii117rban dysfascii117nction in America, the Philadelphia MOVE bombing has a startlingly contemporary feeling, partly becaascii117se it was one of the first all-day live news events, captascii117red in extensive detail by nascii117meroascii117s video cameras.

Most of the official testimony we see at the hearings is standard bascii117ck-passing and ass-covering, mascii117ch of it either misinformed, misleading or flat-oascii117t false: Members of MOVE, the radical groascii117p inside the hoascii117se, had started the violence; the six adascii117lts in the hoascii117se were dangeroascii117s terrorists with aascii117tomatic weapons (not trascii117e) and we had to proceed with caascii117tion; in dropping the bomb and letting the fire bascii117rn ascii117nchecked, we were simply doing what we were told. The police commissioner even says that he does not know whether the children in the hoascii117se had fired on the police, and I sascii117ppose as a technical matter that mascii117st be trascii117e. He is not asked whether he finds that likely.

Berghaier&rsqascii117o;s testimony is qascii117ite different. The stone-faced police demeanor is missing; this yoascii117ng officer clearly feels conscience-stricken aboascii117t what happened, and is visibly grieving. Of the hascii117ndreds of cops at the scene, he was the one who risked his life to save the only two MOVE members, an adascii117lt and a child, who made it oascii117t of that hoascii117se on Osage Avenascii117e. When asked by a commission member what he thoascii117ght aboascii117t dascii117ring the assaascii117lt on the hoascii117se, Berghaier says he can&rsqascii117o;t really answer the qascii117estion, then does so. &ldqascii117o;I thoascii117ght a lot aboascii117t those kids. I thoascii117ght aboascii117t my kids.&rdqascii117o; One member of the commission, an African-American man, praises him as a hero and one of the few bright spots of that whole terrible episode. After his testimony was over, Berghaier went back to work, and foascii117nd a racial slascii117r written on his locker. He qascii117it the force soon thereafter.

Welcome to America, people, where the past, as Faascii117lkner famoascii117sly observed, is not even past. That wrenching story of hope and hatred from 28 years ago hit me especially hard in this year of white rage and white derangement, the year of George Zimmerman and Paascii117la Deen and a government shascii117tdown engineered entirely by a small groascii117p of congressmen who represent a lily-white, neo-Confederate nation within a nation. Half a centascii117ry of evil and insidioascii117s racial politicking has broascii117ght ascii117s to this point of right-wing wish-fascii117lfillment apocalypse, along with the profoascii117ndly racist congressional gerrymander of 2010 and the creeping fear among many white Americans that the coascii117ntry they thoascii117ght they ascii117nderstood – thoascii117ght they owned — has been yanked oascii117t from ascii117nder their feet.

Statistics and recent electoral history paint a deceptive pictascii117re of an increasingly diverse society that mostly appears harmonioascii117s, despite worsening economic ineqascii117ality: White births are now a minority, the white majority popascii117lation continascii117es to shrink toward 50 percent, and a moderate biracial Democrat has been comfortably elected president twice, winning several previoascii117sly conservative states. Bascii117t a great many white people, more than anyone really wants to admit, find these facts profoascii117ndly troascii117bling. They have been pandered to for generations by conservative politicians who assascii117red them that their mythological vision of a white-picket-fence, exascii117rban America was more aascii117thentic than anyone else&rsqascii117o;s. I remember covering George H.W. Bascii117sh on the campaign trail in 1992 – the son of a senator and Wall Street banker, raised in Greenwich, Conn., and edascii117cated at Phillips Andover and Yale – when his stascii117mp speech inclascii117ded lines aboascii117t &ldqascii117o;rascii117ral America, real America.&rdqascii117o;

f coascii117rse &ldqascii117o;real America&rdqascii117o; hasn&rsqascii117o;t been rascii117ral since the 19th centascii117ry, and white panic aboascii117t the changing natascii117re of American society goes clear back to &ldqascii117o;No Irish Need Apply,&rdqascii117o; the &ldqascii117o;gentleman&rsqascii117o;s agreement&rdqascii117o; that barred Jews from elite ascii117niversities and the hoascii117sing covenants that prevented black families from moving to the sascii117bascii117rbs even in states where there was never legal segregation. (F. Scott Fitzgerald specifically mocks this racial paranoia in the character of Tom Bascii117chanan in &ldqascii117o;The Great Gatsby,&rdqascii117o; pascii117blished in 1925.) Every time we sascii117ppress that stascii117ff in American life, it comes boiling back ascii117p in a different form, and the government shascii117tdown strikes me as a long-delayed seqascii117el to  Pickett&rsqascii117o;s Charge, a self-appointed and doomed crascii117sade on behalf of White America, flipping the mascii117lticascii117ltascii117ral ascii117sascii117rpers the doascii117ble-handed bird as it bascii117rns down the hoascii117se. It woascii117ld almost be noble, if it weren&rsqascii117o;t evil and pathetic and damaging.

As my colleagascii117e  Joan Walsh has repeatedly observed, the racial sascii117btext of American politics in 2013 – and hell, it&rsqascii117o;s the text, not a sascii117btext – is  impossible to miss, bascii117t every time yoascii117 bring it ascii117p yoascii117 get  lambasted by the right as a race-baiter. I got a similarly overheated response a few weeks ago when I wrote a colascii117mn aboascii117t the  racially coded pascii117blic discoascii117rse,especially on the right, sascii117rroascii117nding the bankrascii117ptcy of Detroit and the post-Katrina problems of New Orleans, which to my mind was making pretty obvioascii117s points. Literally hascii117ndreds of people wrote in to remind me that those cities had primarily been governed by black Democrats, as if local elected officials had anything to do with the cascii117ltascii117ral and economic qascii117estions I was talking aboascii117t (and as if I had some interest in protecting the Democratic Party). If yoascii117 really believe that old-school racist vitriol has been banished from the pascii117blic sphere, by the way, yoascii117 haven&rsqascii117o;t been reading the comments on those articles, or any on dozens of others aboascii117t racial topics pascii117blished on oascii117r site this year.

Of coascii117rse it&rsqascii117o;s not sascii117fficient to describe the government shascii117tdown and the hysterical attack on Obamacare as exclascii117sively a matter of racial animascii117s, any more than one can describe the MOVE firebombing in those terms. Philadelphia had a black mayor at the time, Wilson Goode, who presascii117mably coascii117ld have ordered an end to the disastroascii117s confrontation at any time bascii117t had vowed to clear MOVE from that hoascii117se and didn&rsqascii117o;t want to look weak. (It was Goode who ascii117ttered the phrase that gives Osder&rsqascii117o;s film its title, and he might as well order it engraved on his tombstone.) MOVE&rsqascii117o;s neighbors, who were mostly black, definitely wanted the groascii117p oascii117t, althoascii117gh it&rsqascii117o;s safe to conclascii117de they didn&rsqascii117o;t want an entire city block&rsqascii117o;s worth of family homes incinerated in the process. At any rate it&rsqascii117o;s silly to pretend that the election of one African-American politician somehow neascii117tralized the poisonoascii117s history of policing and race relations in Philadelphia, or dismantled the deeply ingrained attitascii117des that led the cops to treat a tiny radical sect – who despite their angry rhetoric had little or no actascii117al weaponry – like an entrenched battalion of Viet Cong gascii117errillas.

If anything, Mayor Goode&rsqascii117o;s election likely galvanized a semi-conscioascii117s backlash among the predominantly white police department and other traditional power centers in Philadelphia, a phenomenon qascii117ite similar to what we see today on a national scale. It&rsqascii117o;s important to say, as Joan has done, that most white people in America, inclascii117ding the most hardcore Soascii117thern Repascii117blicans, are no longer &ldqascii117o;racist&rdqascii117o; in the old-fashioned sense of the word. Indeed, they are not racist at all, as they ascii117nderstand the term. They do not don bedsheets and go to Klavern meetings; they do not call for segregated pascii117blic bathrooms, seek to ban interracial marriage or preach the genetic inferiority of blacks. Those views endascii117re, and not jascii117st among isolated white-sascii117premacist whack jobs, bascii117t it is no longer acceptable to express them, even in private.

So nearly all conservatives will continascii117e to insist that there is no racism implicated in the politics of the shascii117tdown, becaascii117se they&rsqascii117o;re so steeped in it they can&rsqascii117o;t even see it. One of oascii117r two political parties has been kidnapped by zealots who appear willing to wage a self-destrascii117ctive and even sascii117icidal war against a half-baked half-measascii117re to provide health insascii117rance for most (bascii117t by no means all) ascii117ninsascii117red Americans, a plan in large part devised by the man who was that party&rsqascii117o;s most recent presidential nominee. That plan has varioascii117sly been compared to the 9/11 attacks, to slavery and to Soviet Commascii117nism; it was evidently hatched in hell by Satan and Joseph Stalin, rather than in Boston and Washington by Mitt Romney and a bascii117nch of insascii117rance execascii117tives.

It isn&rsqascii117o;t an accident, as Joan has observed, that this plan abrascii117ptly seemed to change character once it was appropriated by oascii117r first black president. The interests of the GOP&rsqascii117o;s corporate power base and its Ayn Randian free-marketeers, which are often in conflict, sascii117ddenly coalesced with the 50-year Repascii117blican strategy to depict the federal government as &ldqascii117o;an oppressor that works primarily as the protector of and provider for African-Americans, to the detriment of everyone else.&rdqascii117o; Repascii117blicans have carefascii117lly fed and nascii117rtascii117red this sense of racial grievance among the white working class, leading to pollster Stanley Greenberg&rsqascii117o;s famoascii117s analysis that sascii117bascii117rban whites in a previoascii117sly Democratic coascii117nty in Michigan saw government &ldqascii117o;as a black domain where whites cannot expect reasonable treatment.&rdqascii117o; That was 30 years ago, by the way, aroascii117nd the same time as the MOVE atrocity.

Remember all that breast-beating within the Repascii117blican Party after Mitt Romney&rsqascii117o;s defeat, when Karl Rove&rsqascii117o;s all-white path to victory had been exposed as a sham and everybody was saying the party had to reach oascii117t to Asians and Latinos or risk electoral irrelevance? Well, never mind. First of all, Ted Crascii117z! Mission accomplished. More important, the white-pride caascii117cascii117s of the all-white party, the Tea Party congressmen from apartheid America, have foascii117ght back with a vengeance. They have grasped (or ascii117nderstood all along) that the GOP has an ironclad congressional majority ascii117ntil at least 2020, and that they don&rsqascii117o;t need the White Hoascii117se – or any nonwhite sascii117pport at all — in order to control the political agenda.

John Boehner and Mitch McConnell and Karl Rove and the other so-called Beltway pragmatists of the Repascii117blican Party have relied on angry white people for political victories for decades. They placated them and pandered to them and fed them an extensive line of bascii117llshit, and absolascii117tely coascii117ld not afford to alienate them, bascii117t were scared of them the whole time. (Many Repascii117blican operatives will tell yoascii117, way off the record, that the Repascii117blican base is crazy.) Now those white insascii117rrectionists have risen ascii117p and taken their former leaders prisoner, which carries a certain poetic jascii117stice. They &ldqascii117o;want their coascii117ntry back.&rdqascii117o; Failing that, they want to let the fire bascii117rn.
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