No, the United States is Not Headed Toward a Race War

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.

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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.