Heather Ann Thompson

becomes the story.

And soon you can find it everywhere, including in mainstream news outlets across the country.

And indeed, most recently, I noticed when I was doing the book that when Bernie Getz is interviewed about Kyle Rittenhouse's act of vigilantism on that station that was covering the story, again, the sharpened screwdrivers come up.

And this is now, you know, 40

Some years later, it's now become fact that they were sharpened screwdrivers.

And, of course, from there flowed everything.

One can only visualize the man who's being surrounded by these thugs and these animals with sharpened screwdrivers.

And, of course, then everything he did thereafter was justified.

Absolutely.

He was asked about Daniel Penny.

He was asked about Goethe.

written house.

He is asked today what he thinks about the fact that books are being written about him.

I mean, people want to know, people want to make sure he's being treated fairly.

People want to know what he has to say.

I often just find myself wondering, have they reached out to the family members of the young men that he shot?

I suspect not.

Well, believe it or not, even though I've written quite a bit over these years about the power of

moments just like this, the ways in which racialized rage can animate American history.

And yet, again and again, I find myself just kind of taken aback.