Bernie Goetz

In December 1984, I had been living in Washington, D.C. for a year and a half. My parents had just paid off their home mortgage that fall. And the political fractures in my family began to develop.

I didn't know it then, but one of the fault lines came from the Bernie Goetz subway-shooting case, which happened that month. 

I've had that idea in the back of my mind for years, and meant to write about it, but have never had the mental capacity, skill, or historical chops to go about it.

Now, historian Heather Ann Thompson has just written the definitive article about it for The Atlantic, and since I still subscribe (in order to keep paying Adam Serwer's salary), I can provide a gift link. (Title: How the Bernie Goetz Shootings Explain the Trump Era: A notorious event in 1984 divided New Yorkers in ways that feel extremely familiar four decades later.)

Please read it. Our minds are in sync. 

If you know about the case, its media coverage, and the trial, there's likely a lot you've forgotten, or you never heard about it correctly in the first place. I know that was true for me. 

And if you're too young to know about it, it's really important to learn about it in mapping where our country went wrong.