3 ms·

> Just take a gander at Twitter or at the comment section of a political article and you’ll see just how violently enraged we’ve become. Ahistorical nonsense.

> Just take a gander at Twitter or at the comment section of a political article and you’ll see just how violently enraged we’ve become. Ahistorical nonsense. Ever since the vast majority of humans have become politically aware political violence has been a fact of life. Repression, revolution, purges, terror, assassinations, progroms, riots, barroom brawls, slander, muckraking, bribery, insightment are a constant fact of the modern and pre-modern world. Before there was such a thing as popular political awareness the nobel classes engaged in all the same in their own way. Since the 70s, America and Europe have enjoyed and continue to enjoy one of the least politically violent stretches in world history all the while carrying on an inflammatory and sometimes vial discourse. If you find the current rhetoric jarring it's probably because you lived in an enclave which was protected or benefited by the hegemony of the white professional class and so had no reason to be exposed to the anger and violent language that often accompanies the desperate demand for change.

crooked-v 7y ago
Some simple examples of that last point: The Tulsa massacre in 1921, where a single mistaken claim of assault by a black teenager led to massive mob violence against the city's black community complete with private planes dropping homemade incendiaries on black neighborhoods. Estimates are that at upwards of 100 black people were killed and more than 10,000 were left homeless. More than 6,000 black people were arrested, but no action was ever taken against the whites who took part. The zoot suit riots in Los Angeles in 1943, where mobs of thousands of American military servicemen and local white residents sought out, assaulted, and stripped every Hispanic they could find (as well as the occasional black person). More than 150 people were beaten. Police joined in on said beatings, and then arrested more than 500 of those same people who had been targeted by them, for 'vagrancy' and 'rioting'. The Kent State killings of 1970, where the Ohio National Guard indiscriminately fired on a crowd of protesting college students, murdering four and injuring nine, and the Jackson State killings ten days later, where city and state police fired on student protestors, murdering two and injuring twelve. No criminal prosecution was ever taken against the people who did the actual killing or the leadership involved in either case.
- sizzle 7y ago
  Didn't know about those last college incidents, thanks for sharing.

crooked-v 7y ago

Some simple examples of that last point: The Tulsa massacre in 1921, where a single mistaken claim of assault by a black teenager led to massive mob violence against the city's black community complete with private planes dropping homemade incendiaries on black neighborhoods. Estimates are that at upwards of 100 black people were killed and more than 10,000 were left homeless. More than 6,000 black people were arrested, but no action was ever taken against the whites who took part. The zoot suit riots in Los Angeles in 1943, where mobs of thousands of American military servicemen and local white residents sought out, assaulted, and stripped every Hispanic they could find (as well as the occasional black person). More than 150 people were beaten. Police joined in on said beatings, and then arrested more than 500 of those same people who had been targeted by them, for 'vagrancy' and 'rioting'. The Kent State killings of 1970, where the Ohio National Guard indiscriminately fired on a crowd of protesting college students, murdering four and injuring nine, and the Jackson State killings ten days later, where city and state police fired on student protestors, murdering two and injuring twelve. No criminal prosecution was ever taken against the people who did the actual killing or the leadership involved in either case.

sizzle 7y ago
Didn't know about those last college incidents, thanks for sharing.