February 29 is the anniversary of publishing of The Kerner Commission Report in 1968. The previous year had seen over 150 riots, and the US president had commissioned the report to determine the causes of the riots, and what could be done to make them stop.

The media and the vast majority of white people thought that it was the fault of communist agitators or young black hooligans, as could be seen echoed in the earlier McCone Commission. The report released on today’s date told a very different story. The report was an absolutely scathing indictment of the racist US society from the top down.

Instead of victim blaming, the report described police brutality, a racist justice system, unemployment, racist financial institutions, and suppression of political will. As we’ve seen time and time again in the US regime, a people pushed to the brink will rebel against their oppressors. Whenever this occurred, a recurring theme was that the regime would send in the military to squash the uprising and issue deadlier weapons to the police, fueling further violence and outrage. The media would then over-report the white casualties and under-report the black casualties, while blaming black agitators for the riots.

The report suggested that the solution to the problem would be to treat black people as equals, and increase the amount of opportunities available to them. Of course, this greatly upset the white populace, the president included. A mere 18% of white people believed that black people were discriminated in hiring processes.

In the end, the US president had this to say:

“The Johnson administration would not shift resources from the war in Vietnam to social reform, and Congress would not agree to tax increases. Further, state legislatures routinely blunted the local impact of federal actions.”

In other words, bombing Vietnam was more important than caring for their own people, and it’s too hard anyway. Today we can still this reflected in the demographics of the US. Black people are second only to the native peoples for poverty rates. And over double the rates for white people. Riots over racial inequality are still seen today. The regime’s response remains the same, although the current priority is bombing Russians and Palestinians.