Indeed, for all the anguished searching for the roots of the Cincinnati riots and those of the numerous disturbances that preceded it last century, there's no great mystery about their cause. Almost invariably, an instance (real or rumored) of police brutality or abuse of power, capping a history of tension with a city's black community, has provoked this country's major riots. [...] But if the precipitating cause of urban riots is no secret, the explosive reaction of African-Americans to police misbehavior somehow keeps surprising most Americans, or at least most white Americans. Yet these reactions, which typically have followed long-festering grievances against an abusive police force, follow a certain logic. [...] Until the spotlight of responsibility for such mayhem is directed at the police as well as at black ghetto-dwellers, the racial uprisings that tour the country every generation will probably not abate.
And doesn't that provide great hope for the future.
Copyright © 2001, Iain Jackson, after-words.org
[Archives: 2001 and after]
Archives before February 5, 2001
Search entries:
12/19/2001: vive la france
12/19/2001: princess, redux
12/19/2001: yemen and rumsfeld
12/18/2001: you're NOT in the army now
12/18/2001: interesting donation
12/18/2001: shame on winn dixie, indeed
12/18/2001: saudi princess
12/17/2001: new resolve
12/17/2001: a victim of the attack ... yeah, right
12/17/2001: polluters ho!