You have to understand the Newark Riots - a lot of people

Host: The rain had stopped, but the streets still shimmered beneath the streetlights, the city breathing quietly after a long day. The air smelled of asphalt, steam, and old smoke — the kind that never truly leaves once a neighborhood has burned.

It was night in Newark, or at least the kind of night that felt like it could have been — a modern echo of 1967, when anger became language and fire became punctuation.

In a small diner off Springfield Avenue, Jack and Jeeny sat in a corner booth, coffee cups cooling, the radio crackling softly with an interview replay:

“You have to understand the Newark Riots — a lot of people understand that the pain was the initial explosion of anger and alienation, but after that, the response, sending the National Guard troops — a lot of violence was carried out and perpetrated by those who were allegedly coming here to protect residents.” — Cory Booker.

The radio faded, leaving a silence thick as breath before confession.

Jeeny: (quietly) “Every city has ghosts, Jack. But Newark’s ghosts still shout.”

Jack: “Yeah. Some wounds never scar. They just stay open long enough for the next generation to inherit.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Booker was talking about — the kind of hurt that keeps living because justice never does.”

Jack: (staring out the window) “You ever wonder if the explosion was the only honest moment?”

Jeeny: “What do you mean?”

Jack: “Anger, alienation — those are human. What came after — the soldiers, the rifles, the ‘order restored’ — that’s the lie. They call it protection, but it always looks like punishment.”

Jeeny: “And the city bleeds quietly while they take the photos.”

Host: The diner lights flickered, a low hum of electricity mixing with the sound of rain dripping from the awning outside. The neon sign buzzed, flashing “OPEN” — as if the word itself were mocking the idea of progress.

Jeeny: “You know what’s strange? We keep teaching riots like they’re storms — something that just happens. But storms end. Oppression doesn’t.”

Jack: “That’s because people like clean timelines. They want beginnings and ends. Violence is easier to digest when you can timestamp it.”

Jeeny: “You sound angry.”

Jack: (half-smiling) “Anger’s inherited too.”

Jeeny: “You weren’t there.”

Jack: “You don’t have to be. It’s in the soil. You walk these streets long enough, you can still feel it — that tension, that quiet watchfulness. Everyone pretending the city healed, but you can still smell the smoke if you stand still long enough.”

Host: Outside, a bus passed, its wheels hissing over wet pavement, headlights reflecting in the puddles like molten history. The city’s rhythm had slowed, but its heartbeat — distant, aching — was still palpable in the silence between their words.

Jeeny: “It’s complicated though, isn’t it? The National Guard — they were scared kids too. Sent here with guns and no understanding of what they were walking into. Trained to see chaos, not cause.”

Jack: “And chaos is exactly what they created. You can’t drop soldiers into a wound and expect healing.”

Jeeny: “So what would’ve helped? Words? Negotiation?”

Jack: “Listening.”

Jeeny: “No one listens during fire, Jack.”

Jack: “Then they should’ve listened before it.”

Host: The waitress passed by, her shoes squeaking softly, refilling cups without asking. Steam rose from the coffee, curling like ghosts of breath, like something invisible trying to become visible.

Jeeny: “You know what the tragedy is? Every generation thinks their riot will be the last one. They march, they break, they burn, and then twenty years later the same anger just puts on new clothes.”

Jack: “Because we never change the script. We punish the pain but not the cause.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because the cause is profitable.”

Jack: (nodding) “Yeah. Division’s a business. Fear keeps the powerful funded.”

Jeeny: “But pain keeps the powerless alive.”

Jack: “How do you mean?”

Jeeny: “It’s the only thing they’re allowed to feel without permission. You can strip people of dignity, of justice — but you can’t take their right to hurt. That’s what the riot was — not chaos, not criminality — it was ownership of pain.”

Jack: (softly) “Ownership of pain…”

Host: The rain returned, soft but steady — like memory insisting on its place. The windows fogged, turning the outside world blurry, imprecise, like history itself — always refracted, never whole.

Jack: “You know, my father used to talk about that summer. He said he watched from the window, saw soldiers march down his block like it was foreign soil. He said the real violence wasn’t the fire — it was the silence that came after.”

Jeeny: “The silence?”

Jack: “Yeah. When everyone went back inside and pretended the world had reset. Like it never happened. Like it was just an episode, not a message.”

Jeeny: “That’s how oppression survives — by being forgettable.”

Jack: “Or by being rewritten.”

Host: The candle at their table flickered, throwing light across their faces — Jack’s sharp, tense, haunted; Jeeny’s calm, but eyes heavy with empathy.

Jeeny: “You think we’ve learned anything since then?”

Jack: “We’ve learned how to film it.”

Jeeny: (grimly) “And how to scroll past it.”

Jack: “The medium changed. The message didn’t.”

Jeeny: “So what’s left then? If listening didn’t save them, and remembering doesn’t stop it — what’s left?”

Jack: (after a long pause) “Understanding.”

Jeeny: “That’s what Booker said — ‘You have to understand the Newark riots.’ Not excuse, not romanticize — understand.”

Jack: “Because understanding isn’t forgiveness. It’s the first step toward not repeating.”

Jeeny: “And yet here we are.”

Host: The radio crackled again, a brief burst of static, before another voice — a modern news anchor — began speaking about unrest in another city, another protest turned violent, another story wearing the same face with a different name.

The timing felt cruel.
Or maybe just honest.

Jeeny: “Sometimes I think history’s not a line, Jack. It’s a circle. Same anger, same oppression — we just change the hashtags.”

Jack: “And the uniforms.”

Jeeny: “And the excuses.”

Jack: “But never the truth.”

Jeeny: “Which is?”

Jack: (staring out the window again) “That power doesn’t protect — it preserves itself. That’s all the Guard was sent here to do. Not to guard lives, but the illusion of order.”

Jeeny: “And the people?”

Jack: “Collateral grace. The price of stability.”

Host: A sirene wailed distantly, long and fading, cutting through the night air like an echo from 1967 — a sound that could have been past or present, memory or warning.

Jeeny: (quietly) “You think it’ll ever end?”

Jack: “Not until justice stops needing witnesses.”

Jeeny: “Then maybe understanding is a form of rebellion.”

Jack: “Maybe it’s the only one that lasts.”

Host: The rain slowed again, the city sighing, exhausted, but still alive. The camera drifted outward, catching the two figures through the diner window, faces lit by reflection, shadows blending with neon — two people still trying to make sense of a history that refused to stay in its decade.

On the radio, Cory Booker’s words replayed once more — quiet, deliberate, weary but resolute:

“You have to understand the Newark riots… a lot of violence was carried out by those who were allegedly coming here to protect residents.”

Host: And maybe that’s the hardest truth of all —
that sometimes the ones who promise protection
are the ones from whom we must be protected.

The scene faded, leaving only rain, light,
and the echo of understanding still unfinished —
like a city that refuses to die
because its truth keeps breathing.