** 21-Jul-2019 World View: Racial civil war in America
Guest wrote:
> Group membership, aka ethnonationalism, is one of the most
> powerful underlying forces of human psychology, hence why I view
> the coming US Civil/Race War as inevitable and why sides must be
> chosen.
That was an interesting discussion that happened overnight. Glad I
slept through it. A lot of the racist stuff is fatuous nonsense,
referencing political rants that are directed against whites and have
nothing to do with race. Many idiotic things were said.
There will certainly be isolated instances of rioting and looting in
this Crisis era, and some of it may even be racial, but there is
absolutely nothing in American history to support the idea of an
organic, racial civil war.
The American Civil War of the 1860s was not such a war. There was
nothing organic about it. It was a highly organized war between the
Northern and Southern armies. And almost nothing happened after the
war ended to perpetuate it.
You could argue that there were many instances of violence after the
Civil War. The Democratic Party had opposed ending slavery, and after
the war, the Democratic party launched a military wing, the Ku Klux
Klan, against its political enemies, the Republicans. The KKK
particularly targeted blacks with violence during the Reconstruction
Period, and then for decades afterward. But the KKK violence toward
blacks only consisted of isolated instances, and never "caught on" in
an organic way, that might have lead to a more significant war, even
during the 1930s, which was a generational Crisis era. There was
plenty of left-wing violence in the 1930s, but it was mostly motivated
by economics, rarely by race.
Today, the fascist organization Antifa is arguably the successor to
the Ku Klux Klan as a new military wing of the Democratic party, but
Antifa's violence is not directed towards blacks but towards whites in
the Tea Party who are now Trump supporters. Violence and incitement
of violence against Tea Partiers began years ago, with Democrats using
the invective "teabaggers," which is the modern day equivalent of the
n-word, and with people like Obama's close friend and advisor James
Hoffa, head of the Teamsters Union, calling for violence and war
against Tea Partiers with language like: "We are ready to march.
Let’s take these sons of bitches out and give America back to an
America where we belong." Today you have congresswoman Maxine Waters
repeatedly inciting violence against Trump supporters by telling
Democrats to confront them in restaurants and gas stations.
Left-wing violence has been increasing gradually for years,
and the fascist organization Antifa has been leading the way.
I expect Antifa violence to continue growing.
But once again, the Antifa violence is not "catching on" in an organic
way that might lead to a racial civil war, especially since the
fascist Antifa is targeting white political opponents, not blacks.
If you live in New York City, you may end up being at the epicenter of
one of those isolated riots, especially with the mayor Bill de Blasio
doing all he can to incite racial violence.
However, even in NY city there's little to suggest that an organic
racial war is coming. Here, from Wikipedia, is a list of all
the NY City riots:
- 1712 – New York Slave Revolt occurred on April 6, when Africans
set fire to a building and attacked settlers
- 1741 – New York Conspiracy occurred when a series of fires March
through April burned portions of the city
- 1788 – Doctors Mob Riot, occurred in April over the illegal
procurement of corpses from the graves of slaves and poor whites
- 1834 – Anti-abolitionist riot, occurred from July 7 to July 10
over abolitionism
- 1837 – Flour Riots, occurred February 12, when merchant stores
were sacked, destroying or looting 500-600 barrels of flour and 1,000
bushels of wheat
- 1844 – Brooklyn riot, occurred on April 4 between nativists and
Irish immigrants.
- 1849 – Astor Place riot, occurred May 10 at the Astor Opera House
between immigrants and nativi
- 1857 – New York City Police Riot occurred June 16 between the New
York Municipal Police and the Metropolitan Police over the Mayor's
appointment for the position of city street commissioner
- 1857 – Dead Rabbits Riot, occurred July 4 through 5 and consisted
of widespread gang violence and looting
- 1863 – New York City draft riots, occurred July 13 through 16 in
response to government efforts to draft men to fight in the ongoing
American Civil War.
- 1870 – First New York City Orange riot, occurred July 12 when
demonstrators clashed with hecklers and laborers during a parade
- 1871 – Second New York City Orange riot, occurred July 12 when
Orangemen, police and militia clashed with the crowd during a parade
- 1874 – Tompkins Square riot, occurred January 13 when the New York
City Police Department clashed with demonstrators
- 1917 – New York City Food Riot, occurred February 20 over
shortages related to World War I
- 1919 – May Day Riots
- 1922 – Straw Hat Riot, occurred September 13 and 14 when gangs of
boys stole hats throughout the city and assaulted those who resisted
- 1935 – Harlem riot, occurred March 19–20, sparked by rumors of the
beating of a teenage shoplifter
- 1943 – Harlem riot, occurred August 1 and 2 following the nonfatal
shooting of Robert Bandy by a white police officer
- 1964 – Harlem riot, occurred July 16 through 22, following the
fatal police shooting of a 15-year-old African American bystander
- 1968 – New York City riot, occurred April 4 and 5 following the
assassination of Martin Luther King
- 1968 – Columbia University protests, occurred April 23 in response
to the Vietnam War and segregation
- 1969 – Stonewall riots, occurred June 28 through July 2 as a
series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay
(LGBT) community in response to a police raid of the Stonewall Inn
- 1970 – Hard Hat Riot, occurred May 8 in a confrontation between
construction workers and protesters of the Vietnam War, the Kent State
shootings, and the U.S. invasion of Cambodia
- 1973 – Shooting of Clifford Glover, occurred on April 28 and led
to several days of rioting in the South Jamaica neighborhood
- 1977 – New York City Blackout riot, occurred July 13 and 14, when
widespread looting and arson followed a power outage
- 1988 – Tompkins Square Park riot, occurred August 6 and 7 as
protesters against a city imposed curfew clashed with police
- 1991 – Crown Heights riot, occurred August 19 through 21 between
black and Orthodox Jewish residents after two children of Guyanese
immigrants were unintentionally struck by an automobile
- 1992 – Washington Heights riots, occurred July 4 through 7
following the fatal police shooting of Jose Garcia, a Puerto
Rican. One man was killed after falling five stories off a building,
15 were injured and 11 were arrested.
- 2011 – Occupy Wall Street (Brooklyn Bridge
protests). Demonstrators blocked the bridge and more than 700 people
were arrested. Brooklyn, New York
- 2013 – Flatbush Riots, on March 11, a candlelight vigil was held
in response to the police shooting death of 16-year-old Kimani Gray,
who allegedly pointed a .38 caliber pistol at the officers. The
demonstration turned violent due to disappointment that no public
officials had attende. At least one person was injured and a Rite Aid
store was looted and damaged. There was one arrest on disorderly
conduct. Violence continued on March 12 resulting in two officers
receiving minor injuries and 46 arrests, mostly for disorderly
conduct.
You look through this list and see that there are three or four racial
riots in Harlem, but the vast majority of riots just involved whites
-- anti-draft, antiwar, economic, and so forth.
So someone living in NY City might feel that he's in the epicenter of
crisis era riots, but there's absolutely no sign that any of these
riots will spread out of NYC in an organic way. No one outside of NYC
gives a shit what happens in NYC anyway. There is simply no
historical evidence at all that points to a racial civil war.
