Chicago 1968:
The Dog Beneath the Skin

by Doug Dowd

From the perspective of a radical humanist, “civilization” is something still in the offing, something yet to be achieved and to be achieved if and when we cease to oppress and repress, cease to be oppressed and repressed. For those whose standards are lower, whose standards are satisfied when they have achieved comfort and status for themselves, civilization has been achieved in parts of the globe, most especially western parts. But even for them, the achievement is seen as precarious, ever: for them civilization is seen as a thin veneer covering a barbaric reality, a veneer often ripped away in times of stress and upheaval. Chicago has always had its veneer; but there the veneer has hidden an underlying savagery. The Second City has been barbaric at its best: the museums, the periodic renewals, the halls of learning in this most American of cities have placed ill even sharper relief the daily violence to mind, spirit, and body that has characterized Chicago since it first became prominent.

It is easy today to think of Chicago as noteworthy because of the violence it does to blacks; but before Chicago had a black ghetto she was earning her degrees by meting out punishment to whites. The Jungle, after all, is concerned with Chicago at the turn of the century, and with whites—those very whites whose descendants now mete out the violence to blacks (and, during Convention Week, to anyone within reach of a billyclub). The stockyards, the ghetto, crime organized to refinements that would make Al Capone giddy with envy, all these and other elements combined to produce the Walpurgisnacht of Mayor Daley, ruler of all he surveys.

Chicago is not worse than most other large cities in the United States; it is better than some, and many of the smaller ones (have you aver been to Oakland?) are worse still. And, lest we come down too fast and too hard on Mayor Daley, let us ask if it is not true that the Vice President of the United States, present and accounted for, and the President of the United States, safely tucked away in Texas, but bereft neither of television nor telephone—is it not true that either of these powers, in the space of five days of violence on and off the streets, could have lifted a finger and slowed it down, or stopped it? If it is true, then what? If it is not true, what then? But Humphrey wants the presidency so much he can taste it; and if the taste is a bit blurred by blood, one has gotten accustomed to imperfection. And Johnson? For Johnson to call back the violence was to allow the voices of peace in the hall and on the streets to be raised very high; and the voices of peace give no comfort to LBJ's pride, and none to his plans. Daley, Humphrey, Johnson, hustlers ruling over hustlers, and anyone who isn't hustling is a Communist. Be it remembered that A1 Capone used to say he ran Chicago, which he did; and that Al Capone, just before he died volunteered to help fight against the Communists.

Mayor Daley said we were a bunch of terrorists and Communists, and HHH said that the storm troopers (he was talking about us, not the cops) had to be stopped. I remember two people in particular who were stopped, but don't know yet whether they were terrorists, Communists, or Storm Troopers. One was an eight-nine year old boy, who was clubbed; the other was a woman over sixty who was deliberately thrown against a wall, as the cop screamed “You got no business being here!” (“Here” was Michigan Boulevard, pride of the Second City.)

It is of course significant that nobody was killed (as of this writing); nor is it insignificant that the blacks in Chicago were commenting on just that as the days wore one. Blacks are killed, and were killed in Chicago in April in the days after King's murder, in Chicago where “shoot to kill” competes with a pluribus unum as a compelling slogan. That blacks were killed in Chicago in April, and whites were not killed in Chicago in August, leads one to wonder if the killing and non-killing were accidental in either case; leads one to wonder if “shoot to kill” had to be urged on the Chicago cops; leads one to wonder when the word will go out to get the non-hustlers, too. That equality, the equal opportunity to be killed by the cops whether one is black or white, is likely to become real all too soon. At the Pentagon, one saw a few helmets. In Chicago, one saw many helmets, and a fair number of gas masks (I speak of our people). Next time, next place? And when we come determined to have our heads and noses protected, will they then begin to poke those bayonets into us, and use their ammunition? They will, because we outnumber them, and they are terrified. And they are armed. The word went around that the guns weren't loaded in Chicago. Careless talk. One saw machine guns on the street with ammo belts. One saw Guardsmen here and there with ammo belts. One saw shots fired—over the heads, to be sure; but those were bullets going over the heads. And bayonets were leveled more than once.

We are moving toward it, we whites, we are moving toward equality, but not the kind we seek. But it is the kind we cannot avoid, unless we acquiesce in the savagery our country practices at home and abroad. To do the latter is to become a savage; not to do so is to be treated savagely. Them: is only one other possibility. If the good Americans who saw it all on TV (they didn't show much of it on TV, but a little of that should have been enough for anyone not totally anaesthetized), the good Americans who were wandering down Michigan Boulevard, or even Wabash Avenue, through gas and sometimes beatings, if they, and the McCarthy people who found themselves pulled out of bed at five in the morning for having thrown things out the window onto Michigan Boulevard (when their windows didn't face that way), if all those who saw, who experienced, what happened would realize that Chicago was no aberration, would realize that this country is now ruled by people who know very well that they run a hated war and must use hateful policies at home to continue hateful policies abroad—if any substantial part of those good Americans would realize that they must work with us to stop fascism in this country, we could stop it. They had their big effort, in the McCarthy campaign. It not only failed electorally, it became one of the prime targets (perhaps the prime target) at Chicago.

That way didn't work. If our ways don't work, if non-violent direct action doesn't work, it is because our numbers have been too few, and because the straight people have allowed us to be called hippies, yippies, terrorists, and whatnot. The shock of Chicago care not because there was gassing and beating, but because newsmen were beaten and gassed, and because there was violence done to delegates in and outside the hall—as though there are two different sets of results for a crushed head, depending upon whether one is a newsman/delegate or not.

We can't wait for the straight people to opt to join us. We have to help there. The Resistance must speak straight out to straight people, not just to itself. SDS must try to broaden its ranks, not by diluting its position, but by communicating it carefully ire teed of self-righteously (and by knowing what it is). Adults who are already turgid in must tune in others. We are in a fight to the death, and we'd better act as though we are. We'd better get serious.

June 24, 2003