Drawing the Wrong Lessons from the Rodney King Riots
April 29, 2012, marked the twentieth anniversary of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. As with all such prior anniversaries of riots, in the days ahead the black poverty industry will predictably mobilize to tell us that we have not done enough to eliminate the root causes of the riots.
There will be the worn and angry calls for more poverty programs and greater redistribution of wealth. In the past, on these anniversaries, some have self-righteously spoken of our obligation to ambiguous notions of fairness and social justice, amid a heavy claim on our “responsibility” to those who ran through the streets of our cities while pillaging, burning, and killing.
On the twenty-fifth anniversary of the publication of the famed but flawed Kerner Commission Report on the riots of the 1960s, Vera Kimble, of the Eisenhower Foundation, called for nothing less than an infusion of thirty billion dollars into America’s ghettos. Certainly, this would have been as successful as all the prior government programs that threw money at the inner city.
For the racial industrial complex, a riot is a crisis not to be wasted: The seeds of a future eruption are contained in the past one. Only by spending more government money, on the urban sinkholes where riots erupted, will we spare ourselves from dealing with the conflagration next time.
The truth about riots is that after tens of millions of dollars in research funding, we really have no idea why they occur. Yes, we know the precipitating events of riots, but root causes are nothing more than another series of liberal myths. They are the preordained conclusions of social science research that is strong on ideology and embarrassingly weak on science.
In this world of faux science, relative or actual economic deprivation, status inconsistency, anomie, and even the creation of a new black middle class all emerge as causes of black riots. All of these are variants of the frustration-aggression (if frustration, then aggression) hypothesis, which allegedly manifests itself in black rage.
Black rage, according to its proponents, is a seething and explosive phenomenon lying dormant in the black community waiting to come to the surface. White racism causes black rage. Blacks are not responsible for its consequences.
Colin Ferguson, a black man, slaughtered six white commuters, random victims, on a Long Island commuter train. Leftist attorney William Kunstler argued, unsuccessfully, that Ferguson, whose actions were dictated by black rage, was also a victim, a victim of white oppression that created black rage.
The one thing all of these explanations have in common, aside from being unsupported, is that they exonerate the rioters. Rioters do not make individual decisions. According to the liberal view of society, rioters are victims of social forces beyond their control.
There was no Damian Williams beating Reginald Denny, the white truck driver nearly battered to death during the 1992 Los Angeles riots. There were simply black people who were acting out in response to social forces. The larger society, not Damian Williams, was responsible for Denny’s beating.
Prior to the latter part of the 20th century, most race riots in America resulted from white rioters assaulting black communities. Yet I cannot recall one social science or historical study that undertook the same type of insipid analysis. No one ever wrote that a lynch mob was a product of white rage. No one wrote that the way to deal with white oppression against black communities was to search for the underlying root causes of the oppressors’ behavior and to create a series of government programs that would eliminate the conditions that give rise to white violence.
The absurdity of such a proposal is palpable. Yet, this, in reverse, is precisely what both students of black urban riots and the poverty industry propose. The absurdity escapes us because it is so ingrained in our culture and in our discourse on riots that we take it for granted.
As early as 1971, sociologist Clark McPhail shattered the frustration-aggression hypothesis of the riots, showing through an extensive examination of the social science research that the hypothesis was absent confirmation. McPhail later became president of the American Sociological Association, and his penetrating research should have ended the discussion, but it did not.
The frustration-aggression hypothesis, like black rage, plays into the narrative of both the liberal and poverty establishments. This is too good a myth to let go. It simultaneously justifies the barbarism of the riots while creating a moral claim on the redistribution of wealth to prevent the next explosion in the ghetto.
The first draft of the Kerner Commission Report is titled “The Harvest of American Racism.” Robert Shellow, who authored this draft, glorified the riots of the 1960s as a major black revolt that demanded nothing less than the complete transformation of the black community. More than a quarter of a century later, Los Angeles Congresswoman Maxine Waters echoed the same nonsense in describing the Rodney King riots.
When we justify lawlessness and barbarism in the name of race and use race as validation for the redistribution of wealth, then we have taken one more step to Balkanizing our society and giving license and affirmation to the next urban riot. Regrettably, we continue to learn the wrong lessons from the urban riots.
In this like all lib speak there is no mention of individual responsiblity. That is always an impossible concept for those with an 6 year old’s mind set.
Lack of socialist redistribution they can control for their own enjoyment is the actual “root cause” of everything bad for left/liberals.
The fact is, Hussein would never have been elected except for the self-loathing segment of white society that continues to accept the narrative of black oppression fostered by the socialist/fascist/communist nexus. If this country is finally laid low due to unbridled leftism run amok, it will be the white community that made it happen. Whites built this country; whites are destroying it.
“…whites are destroying it.”
Only in the aspect that is exemplified by the expression “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.”
Riots happen. Root causes for riots are a different issue. Sometimes it is blindingly obvious why these things happen. Sometimes, not so much. The problem is that this root cause narrative has been handed to the left to write.
Yes, the black community is often depraved, just as the white community has had its depravity. The murder of James Byrd is an example of the latter, the attempted murder of Reginald Denny is another.
The fact is that unless we maintain strong moral communities by encouraging strong families and religion, this sort of depravity will be more and more commonplace. That, unfortunately, is completely outside the ethos of the left.
Unless you’re Muslim. In that case, I guess it is okay to rage against the man. (eyeroll)
Well put. We need massive moral education.
Every black person I have ever met has a stong belief in God.
“Riots happen. Root causes for riots are a different issue. Sometimes it is blindingly obvious why these things happen. Sometimes, not so much. The problem is that this root cause narrative has been handed to the left to write.”
Name the last time white Americans (other than the ’68 Chicago riots) have rioted to the degree of LA or elsewhere where blacks have rioted over the years. Blacks riot because white progs allow them to so that they can show they are on their side and gain their vote. Had we stomped on blacks way back in the 60s riots we would not be talking about this.
“Yes, the black community is often depraved, just as the white community has had its depravity. The murder of James Byrd is an example of the latter, the attempted murder of Reginald Denny is another.”
You are conflating a murder by crazed men with the real depravity of a whole race. Please explain how you can make the leap. If you are taking into account the mass murders/sociopaths that have been white and then you comparing them with blacks who riot (I can almost go for it though) you are comparing apples to oranges.
“The fact is that unless we maintain strong moral communities by encouraging strong families and religion, this sort of depravity will be more and more commonplace. That, unfortunately, is completely outside the ethos of the left.
Unless you’re Muslim. In that case, I guess it is okay to rage against the man. (eyeroll)”
You ended up strong. But since you answered your own conclusion, the only other answer is to fight back. If it becomes a civil war then so be it. We cannot live like the former Yugoslavia or Iraq.
Blotto, riots can happen in the same way that George Lynch encouraged mobs to enact vigilante justice. There will always be people like Lynch who use mob violence to enhance their own power. People like Lynch have used any excuse they can find to incite people to riot. If you do not understand this concept, then you clearly do not understand history.
Race is but one excuse for the latter. I am not conflating anything. It can also be a matter of economics, social class, religion, and the like. The real evil here is that someone uses an excuse of this sort to enact “social justice” upon an individual for perceived crimes that he or she may not even have committed.
Side note: The second amendment is basically a right of self defense, not a right to go out and enact “justice” before the courts have had their say. It is a last resort, when all other social efforts have failed. To do so for any other reason is to build your very own Lynch mob.
As the saying goes: There are four boxes of society: Soap, Ballot, Jury, and Ammo. Use them in that order.
Why are the so very many, many, successful Blacks in their fields so silent on these subjects? ….and invisible as Leaders of their fellow Blacks?
Why is it that we only hear from the Jessie Jackson’s and the Maxine Waters’? Their repetitive plaints are tiresome and are part of the continuing problem of the idea which their ilk cultivate resulting in the continuing Blacks’ “attitude” that the world owes them a living.
Name two on the left. You cannot. Despite their relative success, (which in the context of all that they have been given by white progs) they are all affirmative action, spoiled brat, racist cry babies. The JJs, Sharptons, CBC, and the black talking heads the LSM uses are all incapable of independent thought and critical thinking. They are told what to think and say. Ergo the silence of the “successful” blacks on the left.
“Why are the so very many, many, successful Blacks in their fields so silent on these subjects?”
Actually they do have their respective spokespeople (Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, Ken Hamblin, Bill Cosby, Allen West, to name a few) who are swept to the political sidelines as not authentically black & the black community ignores them. They are so firmly ensconced in the back pockets of the small c’s it’s not funny. I do wonder what it’s going to take to wake them up.
“black rage…is too good a myth to let go…”
Couldn’t have put it better, Abe. Kudos.
It seems evident that, when groups of people are in a segregated area, either physically, or in spirit, and over many years, they are liable to be radicalized if they over-identify with victim status, and can become radicalized.
Whether the cause is just or not, it can lead to despair, violence and even revolution. As civilization’s become ever richer, the benchmark for ‘despair,’ can become ever lower. The last thing groups which lack proportion or pragmatism are going to do is blame themselves for their own problems, especially when significant groups outside themselves, even sometimes part of those they identify as their oppressors, egg them on.
Those who participated in the French and American Revolutions saw themselves as needing to take out their oppressors. The South during the American Civil War saw themselves as on the defensive and some among that losing hand stayed as radicalized after the war as during – terrorism developed, terrorism of blacks and whites.
In 2012, two groups stand out to me as being politically radicalized, but without the benefit of the doubt I would usually give to such groups in historical terms – the Palestinian Arabs and the black Left in America – and by black Left I am including virtually every black American who thinks racially which, again, seems something that community is in monumental agreement with.
The PA in Gaza and the West Bank and black Americans seem to be their own worst enemies. The PA throw the dice for war at the end of the British Mandate and lose – 60 years on it’s all Israel’s fault in their minds. The PA have almost totally abolished any sense of their own responsibility in the affair or a sense of how their own value systems have led them into their current position.
In America, large numbers of blacks in prison beyond what their demographic would suggest is not a sign of a problem in the black community, but the white community. People with actual faces and names who just happen to be black, come to see being black as the issue and not the crimes themselves. 200 million white Americans without names or faces are then summarily put on trial and declared guilty. The case for reality and common sense becomes complicated by other liberals, whites, agreeing, and together they pillory the rest of the white community with nonsensical philosophies that are so bizarre, they wouldn’t pass muster in the library at Alexandria 2,000 years ago.
Critical Race Theory, ‘white privilege,’ The New Jim Crow, the New Confederacy, Racism 2.0 and other childish ideas thrive by ignoring context, proportion, statistics and reality itself in favor of the idea the black people are simply always right when it comes to such matters and white people always wrong.
This is the childish end to nearly every article published by the Left in America, that black people are good and innocent and white people corrupted and to blame.
One doesn’t have to be a genius to see that rioters in New Orleans and Los Angeles, and those who agitated during the Trayvon Martin case see themselves as marching on the Bastille. They have been radicalized past all sense and reason, which has been replaced by smug moralizing and preaching based on a sick version of Ansel Adams Zone System, where the darker you are, the smarter and more insightful you are when it comes to the ‘real deal’ about social justice.
Plainly put, common sense is out the window on this one. Such a mind set is a recipe for failure. Third World countries in their entirety are jumping on this same bandwagon and blame for their own lack of intellectual aggressiveness is laid at the door of the West. Reality has its own ideas about such things so in the end the real victims of such nonsense will always be the blamers – they will reside in last place no matter what. So storm your Bastille and then step back and realize you’ve stormed your own house. I’m not building it for you and I’m not taking it on the chin because you don’t love books, art and curiosity for it’s own sake, but instead, sad, depraved music, narrowness of interests based on race and a love of pouting rather than working out your problems.
Dante’s Inferno, the Uncertainty Principle and time-keeping at sea didn’t exist because of white networking among people who all have each other’s phone numbers and give a nod and a wink at each other as they hand off blueprints they jointly file patents on – they exist because of one man who finds other men who share wonderful values – values of hard work and curiosity and discipline.
Civilization is cut throat and competitive and no one likes me or my ideas cuz I’m white. No one is going to publish my screen play or novel cuz I’m white, no one is going to give me a cheaper loan or publish my photos cuz I’m white.
Leaves aren’t greener, the sky bluer, the sun brighter because I’m white. I am the one who is tasked with painting these things.
Fail,
Even you have fallen for politically-correct history revision. Understandable since this revision was made so long ago.
“The South during the American Civil War saw themselves as on the defensive and some among that losing hand stayed as radicalized after the war as during – terrorism developed, terrorism of blacks and whites.”
In East TN, the real terrorism after the Civil War was commited by the Union, Union sympathizers and “carpet baggers” on ex-Confederates and their families. I cant imagine that it was much different elsewhere
All Americans should ask themselves, where would Democrats be on “race” without their very own Black Inner City Ghettos, o’ so specially constructed to serve their own o’ so special “Progressive” needs?
“Anarchy 101: How Wisconsin’s Left Embraces Chaos,” the report takes us through the protests, legal challenges and subsequent recall efforts of 2011 and 2012. It features Brett Healy and Brian Fraley of the MacIver Institute, Collin Roth of Media Trackers, an unidentified citizen journalist on the ground for many of the protests, and State Sen. Alberta Darling, a target of death threats, intimidation tactics, and a failed recall attempt last year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fys7fzGtAcI&feature=player_embedded
The big gun control push of the 1990s was to ensure that the Left could continue to use riots and the threat thereof as tools for social change. If individual whites could protect themselves and their businesses riots, would pose little threat. If armed blacks were to wage war on armed whites, the blacks would be outnumbered. But with unarmed whites and a hands-off police force, riots would be quite compelling.
What did we learn from the L.A. riots? I learned I should carry a gun.
When someone asks me why anyone needs to carry a gun, I tell them to watch some L.A. riots videos.
I say these people posting here are like a window into a lunatic asylum.
As I recall, the Rodney King Riots were a grass roots protest against the L.A. Police beating a man lying on the ground so severely that even Emperor “Old Goose-stepper” George H.W.Bush got the “Untouchable” Federal Government involved in a civil rights case (Rodney King’s civil rights, after the L.A.P.D.,was declared “not guilty”(!)
Even Daryl Gates, hero fuhrer of the L.A.P.D. was one of those whose heads rolled. It has to be bad when “super-cop” Daryl Gates, the one guy who is guaranteed to know where all the bodies are hidden, who has a skeleton in their closet, and a portfolio of favors to be accounted for.
As I recall, this was the time of the “Ramparts Scandal”. Whatever that was. In fact it seems like the only thing that saved the reputation of the L.A.P.D. was the heroic professional police work done at the “Bank of America Shootout”, which compelled me, (a non-police groupie) to make a long distance call to the L.A.P.D. and express my awe and respect for the profound courage exhibited by those coppers.
Somehow I suspect that it would take more than a dreaded Liberal Communist Godless Drug Crazed Negro Hippie Conspiracy to have the groundswell Crucifixion of Daryl Gates, plus…involving the Untouchable Federal Government, (especially when led by non-beatnik President George H.W.Bush)(He even expressed “disgust” in the media, so it had to be beyond the pale!)
In the aftermath of the Rodney King Incident, which I recall part of which was King being awarded a financial settlement. (In a court of law, as opposed to a message board of amateur Fascists posting such cheesy transparent propaganda that Doctor Göbbels is whirling in his grave.)
I have to agree that If I lived in L.A. I would carry at least 3 guns. Everybody else is! If I were brown skinned, I would powder my face with white talcum powder so I wouldn’t be gunned down on the subway, by the subway police.
Someone posted an observation about the “Black Ghetto Voting Block” manipulated by Democrats. That is probably true. It is like when Adolph Hitler signed the Concordat with the Catholic Church so that the German Catholics as a voting block would help elect Adolph Hitler Chancellor. After the Concordat was signed, the Anti-Hitler Bishops and Catholics in general were told to shut their cake holes by the Fuhrer in Rome. Sorry, I meant Pope.
Hitler was forced to use Catholics because in the 1930s, there was a shortage of African-Germans to put in a Ghetto.
Dr. Miller’s article powerfully refutes liberal justifications of African American riotings. Frankly, many of their rationales, widely publicized, create the justifications for future rioters.
Of Course, the underlying issue is how to understand the causes of riots and to then predict when such events are more likely to occur. Unfortunately, as liberal justifications become widespread, those Blacks in concentrated urban communities actually entertain an expectation that they should riot as a response to perceived racial victimization.
The issue of rioting is as old as urban life. There were records of riots in ancient Alexandria and Rome, and many other well known locales of antiquity. It is, I think, safe to say, African Americans were not among them. Our best efforts at understanding the root causes of such events are limited to historians’ common currency of the flash point events as best understood at the time. Thus, food riots broke out not merely after some time of food scarcity, but immediately upon a flash-point event. The Irish riots in New York City during the civil war had a lead up of drafting Irish immigrants for “Lincoln’s Meat Grinder War” in the South, but there was a precipitating event that galvanized the community into lawless riots.
An interesting study might be a correlative analysis between American sub populations and the propensity for those in their nations of origin to act in similar ways. There are, for example, excellent studies comparing the murder rape and robbery statistics of sub-populations here in the states with those of the origin nations of such populations. The correlations were profound.
I’m not sure this gets us any closer to knowing precise causes, but it certainly helps us determine seed beds.
Common sense does provide more than bromides. Concentrations of poorer people, not wedded to families or jobs, are far more likely to give in to the “mob mentality” (ferocious violent frenzy) than their next door neighbors who are of the same ethnicity, but have children to protect & support. Or their middle class former neighbors, who have long since moved on.
Our best bet is to not treat it as a race based phenomenon, but as individual criminal acts; we should suppress such events vigorously and prosecute rioters to the very fullest extent of the law.