Strife

Denver put a curfew in place and the Colorado National Guard has been called out to address riots in the Centennial State's capitol city.

National Guardsmen of the 40th Armored Division, California National Guard, August, 1965.

The riots stem from several recent incidents of violent deaths of African Americans, the most recent at the hands of a policeman in Minneapolis Minnesota.

Those riots have spread all across the urban United States.  It's hard, from a distance, to grasp why hundreds of miles away from the scene of the offense riots take place against a community that didn't participate in the offense.  It points to something underlying, and the pundits will be full of analysis over it over the next several weeks.

But on the topic in general, distant riots aren't calculated to achieve anything and end up punishing the communities that were affiliated by them.  Businesses move, employment drops, and those who were deprived to start with are more deprived.  It's a compounding tragedy.

And its one that, in this context, we should be well past.  And yet we're not.