Sep 1

Sep 1 Kenosha II

Demonstrations, Street, Urban Landscapes

“There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin’ like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If you give this man a ride
Sweet family will die
Killer on the road, yeah”

— Riders on the Storm, The Doors, from L.A. Woman (1971)

Novelists often use weather to aid character development and add tone to the plot. So it should come as no surprise that the weather heavily influenced my perceptions when I arrived in Kenosha for President Trump’s controversial visit. Last Friday, the skies were deep blue and the temperatures soared into the 90s. Kenosha and its people exuded vibrancy. The city had seemingly overcome the fate that has befallen so many other rust belt cities. People were on the streets trying to beautify their community in the wake of what was a temporary setback. The necessary repairs would be made in due course. The housing stock was old, but well maintained. The marina and adjacent 350-unit housing project showed that Kenosha’s leaders had taken meaningful steps to keep Kenosha from spiraling down into decay.

Today, I exited the Interstate north of the city. The skies were flat gray; even the colors had a monochromatic hue. The city’s outskirts revealed one nondescript, low-rise distribution center after another. The housing stock was not nearly so nice as what I had seen on the city’s south side. The roads were torn up, with bulldozers, orange and white barricades, and piles of stone obstructing the roads to the city center. A pallor hung in the air, evoking Dylan’s Desolation Row. If it were winter, we would hear the heat pipes just coughing, while despondently envisioning Johanna.

President Trump was in town peddling his Nixonian Law and Order drivel, which should make everyone despondent. I chose to exit the Interstate north of the city so that I could start my visit at 2805 40th Street, the site where Jacob Blake was shot in the back seven times by Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey. Blake’s family was offering counter programming to Trump’s visit, hoping BBQ, free haircuts, and speeches would draw protesters away from the sites that Trump was using for campaign photo-ops. I arrived around 11:00 AM, finding somewhere between 100 and 125 people on the street—many of them members of the media. Reverend Jesse Jackson, visibly showing the effects of the Parkinson’s disease that he has battled for several years, sat at a table answering questions for an interviewer’s radio audience. About 20 tripods surrounded a bank of microphones waiting to capture the press conference.

Jackson, together with Justin Blake, Jacob’s uncle, offered predictable remarks: Jacob is slowly regaining his spirit; the family wants the “Orange One” to leave them alone; Sheskey needs to be prosecuted and convicted of attempted murder; and systemic police racism must end. I understand the anger; I understand the need to eliminate systemic police racism; and I understand that seven bullets in the back is excessive—even one may have been in this case. But I don’t understand Jacob Blake’s resistance to the arrest, which set the tragic events in motion. One thing is for sure: I had an eerie feeling walking on the street where the “leakin’” occurred.

Overall, the multiracial gathering was friendly. From images in the media taken later in the day, it appears that the crowd grew larger, although I don’t think Jacob Blake’s father ever arrived on site.

I then headed east to see what was happening in the park across from the Kenosha County courthouse. I parked my car on 23rd Street, a major north-south thoroughfare. I wanted to get a quick photograph of the five or six Trump supporters standing in front of a house with a “Support the Badge” sign. When I noticed police barricades off to the side on each corner, I thought, “Could this be Trump’s route to Bradford High School where he was going to thank law enforcement?” One way to find out: Ask the cop on the corner. He was outwardly coy, but he did give me the “wink.”

I was a bit surprised that there were no signs prohibiting parking. So I moved into position, deciding not to move my car. After about a 30-minute wait, three SUVs slowed down in front of me. A handler jumped out of the SUV, opened the trunk, unlocked a cage, and then a Shepard bounded out of the vehicle. The handler looked in the windows of the cars while the dog sniffed around each tire, presumably searching for explosives. I assume my car, which was parked four blocks south of my then current position, received a similar inspection.

A military helicopter moved slowly closer to my location, which is the tell. About seven minutes after the dog had sniffed for explosives, the wait was over. A police motorcycle escort roared by, followed by a high-tech black van, several white vans holding the press pool, and nine or 10 black SUVs. The Beast—the presidential armored limo—was nowhere in site. Trump was in one of two SUVs identically outfitted with an American flag on the driver’s side and a flag bearing the Presidential seal on the passenger’s side. And that is as close to Trump as I got.

I can personally verify that Trump lies. From my vantage point, I could see at least five or six blocks south and at least three or four blocks north. Despite Trump’s claims, there were not scores of Blacks and Latinos — friendly or otherwise — lining the route, at least on this stretch of it. I would estimate that there were no more than 50 people lining those nine or so blocks, many of whom seemed to have accidentally stumbled into the moment much to their dismay—they had other places to be. While I didn’t drive Trump’s entire route, I certainly never saw hoards of people on any Kenosha streets as I drove through the city.

After I got back to my car, I headed downtown to see what was happening across from the courthouse. About 75 to 125 people milled around in Civic Center Park, which seems to be the gathering spot for the protesters. With Trump in town, I was not surprised to find a few Trump supporters arguing with the BLM folks. I was fascinated to watch a man and a woman verbally attack each other. I honestly couldn’t figure out who was the Trumper. They were simply yelling at each other, with the man wildly gesturing with his entire body. The guy was really upset because he thought the woman was belittling him for not finishing high school. I saw lots of symbolism in this exchange—throughout the country that Trump has divided, people are talking past one another, without hearing what is being said or understanding why positions are being taken.

I listened to some of the speeches, and then headed back to the burnt-out auto dealership I discovered last Friday, located a couple of blocks south of the courthouse. The only change was the addition of several signs expressing a mixture of bewilderment and despondency, effectively asking, “Why is this happening to our community?” Not wanting to deal with such a difficult question any longer, I returned to my car, walking through the downtown toward the lake. Nobody was on the streets; nobody was painting plywood; and nobody was dining at the outdoor spaces. Kenosha had collapsed into itself.

Time to return to Chicago. But I first took a detour, driving south (past the Jelly Belly factory), and then west through verdant countryside, flush with corn, lettuce, and other leafy vegetables. Yes, I was headed to the Antioch, Illinois, where 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse lives and retreated to after he killed two men and wounded a third a week ago in his misbegotten effort to protect property that he believed was in jeopardy from looters and anarchists. Rittenhouse is the product of a rather nondescript sprawling apartment complex built, probably, in the early Sixties and heavy on shingles and asphalt.

And that’s the way I experienced Trump’s visit to Kenosha.

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