Tulsa: Santayana, Shirley Bassey, VLNUS

• Two Men Arrested Over Racial Shootings in Tulsa

Tulsa has some experience in these matters. The Tulsa Race Riot was a large-scale racially motivated conflict, May 31 - June 1, 1921, between the white and black communities of Tulsa, Oklahoma, in which the wealthiest African-American community in the United States, the Greenwood District also known as 'The Negro Wall St' was burned to the ground.



Aerial fire bombing of black residential neighborhoods was reported. During the 16 hours of the assault, over 800 people were admitted to local hospitals with injuries, more than 6,000 Greenwood residents were arrested and detained at three local facilities. An estimated 10,000 were left homeless, and 35 city blocks composed of 1,256 residences were destroyed by fire. The official count of the dead by the Oklahoma Department of Vital Statistics was 36, but other estimates of black fatalities have been up to about 300.

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Perhaps someday we'll have a complete American history of domestic aerial bombardment. It certainly would include these events:

• 1921: Incendiary bombs were dropped on black neighborhood during Tulsa race riots
• 1921: gas and explosive bombs dropped on WV union miners, Battle of Blair Mountain
• 1985: Philadelphia police drop an incendiary bomb on MOVE headquarters

And lest we believe we're achieved the mythic "post-racial" status, there's the recent John Derbyshire article explaining "the talk" he recommends that white non-black parents should have with their kids. There's really very little new under the sun (VLNUS).