Changes since the '60s ensure we won't return to widespread, violent disorder.
By Stuart Wexler
Stuart Wexler, a historian, is
the author of "America's Secret Jihad: The Hidden History of Religious
Terrorism in the United States," now in paperback.
Is the United States on the verge of a
race war? You might think so if you saw the New York Post’s “Civil War” front
page the morning after the killing of five Dallas police officers. Or if you
watched the YouTube clip of Baton Rouge shooter Gavin Long declaring, “It’s a time for peace, but
it’s a time for war, and most of the times when you want peace, you got to go
to war.” Or read the tweet from former congressman Joe Walsh (R-Ill.), warning “This is war. Watch
out Obama. Watch out black lives matter punks. Real America is coming after
you.” Or if you watched former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani’s speech at the Republican National
Convention: “The vast majority of Americans today do not feel safe. They fear
for their children. They fear for themselves. They fear for our police
officers, who are being targeted, with a target on their back.”
It’s easy to understand why, according
to new polling, Americans say race relations are
getting worse. But despite real fears and frustrations, and those who are
trying to capitalize on those fears and frustrations, the United States is
unlikely to return to the widespread, violent civil disorder of the 1960s.
Improvements in policing and community relations, along with the fragmentation
of extremist groups, provide a bulwark against anything approximating a race
war.
The United States was a powder keg in
the mid ’60s — and there are indeed some parallels to social conditions
today. The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of
1965 were momentous for blacks in the South, but the laws did little to address
the grievances of blacks in northern and western cities, where people of color
could already vote and where discrimination was less overt. Blacks everywhere
grew frustrated with the realities of de facto economic injustice. Then, as now, the black unemployment rate was
approximately double that for whites, and median income was approximately 40
percent lower. Racial disparities persisted in housing, education and political
influence. And racial targeting by the police increased the perception of
powerlessness within black communities. Even still, as now, there was anxiety
among some whites that they were losing out to people of color. When
campaigning in 1965 to become the first big-city black mayor, Cleveland’s Carl Stokes (D) felt the need to
pledge: “My election would not mean a Negro takeover, it would not mean the
establishment of a Negro cabinet. My election would mean the mayor just happened
to come from the Negro group.
Click here for the full article.
Source:
The Washington Post
Note: Mr. Wexler appeared on "The G-Man Interviews" last year to discuss "America's Secret Jihad: The Hidden History of Religious
Terrorism in the United States". You can view the episode here.
No comments:
Post a Comment