Posted on 08/14/2005 12:19:33 PM PDT by nicollo
While many people this month are focused on the controversy surrounding the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, I have another civil-rights-related 40th anniversary on my mind. On Aug. 11, 1965, the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles broke out in flames on the nation's television screens. Many cherish the memory as the moment when the militant became mainstream in a "fed-up" black America, replacing the nonviolent, gradualist efforts of old-guard civil rights leaders. The Watts riot indeed shaped modern black American history more decisively than the Voting Rights Act. The question is whether it was in a good way.
In comparison with the polite sleeve-tugging and forms of nonviolent protest typical of the earlier civil rights generation, the sea change in 1965 may seem at first glance to have been an overdue response to the injustice that black America had endured for so long. But after researching the riot and the policies established in its aftermath, I have come to a different conclusion. In teaching poor blacks that picturesque battle poses were an "authentic" substitute for constructive intentions, the "Burn, Baby, Burn" ethos ultimately did more harm than good to a people who had already been through more than enough.
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(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
McWhorter will have none of the nonsense. A must read, as he keys the riots as the end of the civil rights movement and the destruction of the inner city, and then discusses the lasting devestation that followed the riots in the drastic expansion of Welfare that came in response to them.
McWhorter is doing fabulous work. Great article, and in the (com)Post of all places.
Good article. He raises an excellent point about the establishment of the counterculture and its destructive consequences was a direct result of the fashionable trend for 'morally sophesticated' elites to reject all things about the establishment.
And he raises another very valid point: most of the damage incurred by the riots were incurred by blacks, and black business owners. Those riots probably set back the development of a black middle class ten years, at the very least, and quite possibly more.
The Watts riots burned out the local business community; it was full of anti-semitic rhethoric (usually by refering to Jews as "those foreigners") and the usual vitriol of hate.
It was not a fair, a community event, a love-in, or anything else.
I like the association he makes with the self-indulgence of the 60s counter-culture. I had a cultural anthropology professor who was from Vietnam who had a theory that the 1960s marked popular culture's change from production to consumption. He was so right, and McWhorter makes a similar line of thought.
Nicollo's gonna sign off now. Just wanted to make sure folks had a chance to see this article. If you like it, please bump the thread.
Nice anecdote, and truly valid too IMHO.
There was a lot of anti-Korean rhetoric also. Nobody in Watts had to buy a tv set for another year. It was an excuse to steal and trash the neighborhood.
I wasn't laughing at all when on 07-19-05, this appeared in the headlines: Black Panther foundation seeks to sell "Burn Baby Burn" hot sauce
I heard rumor of Watts. I'm sure everyone living in LA heard about it too. They might have even seen smoke far off in the distance, pictures on TV, etc. When the only thing a supposed rebellion accomplishes is the burning down of the rioter's own homes, you can only describe it as act of epic stupidity. An act with no impact outside of Watts.
Whatever actual the excuse, it's been used ever since as a symbol for a fight against an evil and racist system. McWhorter demonstrates how ridiculous the idea, one on which the modern "equal rights" industry is based.
McWhorter needs to be heard, and for all its defects, that the (com)Post printed his article, is terrific. More than a few readers will head into that article without any idea where it will take them. They will be shocked. Some might even learn something.
The "slums" in my city were burned in the late 1960's, too. However, the only part that was actually burned was the black business section. It has not recovered even today. Yes, some of the businesses were white owned. But, many were black owned. Both were burned. They were not after "whitey". They were looting. Period.
McWhorter is the real deal. His book "Losing The Race" is full of truths. Having a "right to be angry" is one thing. Doing things that give aid and comfort to your worst enemy is a "race horse of a different color."
However true the observation that it was just looting doesn't matter when now two generations of black leadership have deified the event as a "rebellion," a spontaneous uprising against injustice.
McWhorter's statements are more powerful for rather skipping the looters, for he goes at the real trouble, the riot as a false icon.
185JHP, thanks for those quotations.
FReegards (;<)
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