171. San Francisco Chronicle, September 12, 1968, p. 32. 172. Elijah Muhammed, quoted in Essien-Udom, p. 253. 173. Forman, p. 281. 174. Edgar Z. Friedenburg, Coming of Age in America, (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 170. 175. Newsweek, October 28, 1968, p. 84. 176. Rev. John Fry, p. 245. 177. Herman Blake, testimony before this Commission. 178. Rev. John Fry, p. 344. 179. Lemberg, p. 59. 180. Ibid. 181. Lemberg, p. 60. 182. For further discussion of this incident see this report, chapter VII. 183. Lemberg, p. 74. 184. Lemberg, p. 60. 185. Chicago Daily Defender, January 21, 1969, p. 8. 186. New York Times, September 10, 1968, p. 30, quoting an unidentified Black Panther. 187. Walker Report, pp. 29-30. 188. It must be emphasized that the exact nature of most of the following incidents is not clear, due to the lack of any information other than short news reports which are difficult to evaluate. They should be understood as tentative indications. 189. New York Times, September 13, 1968, p. 1. 190. New York Times, September 20, 1968, p. 37. 191. New York Times, September 29, 1968, p. 37. 192. Chicago Tribune, September 30, 1968. 193. St. Louis Post Dispatch, September 12, 1968. 194. Washington Post, September 6, 1968, p. A3. 195. New York Times, January 8, 1969, p. 36. 196. Ray Momboisse, Riot and Civil Emergency Guide for City and County Officials (Sacramento, Calif.: MSM Enterprises, 1968), p. 11. 197. Edwin Lemert, "Juvenile Justice-Quest and Reality," Trans-action, IV, 1967, p. 32. 198. Chicago Tribune, November 8, 1968, p. 4. 199. Robert A. Levin, “Gang-busting in Chicago,” New Republic, June 1, 1968, pp. 16-18; and Riots, Civil and Criminal Disorders, Hearings before the Permanent 200. Gerald Marwell, “Adolescent Powerlessness and Delinquent Behavior," Social Problems, XIV, No. 1 (Summer, 1966), pp. 35-47. 201. National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, Report, p. 2. Chapter V THE RACIAL ATTITUDES OF WHITE AMERICANS INTRODUCTION The most significant conclusion of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (The Kerner Commission) was that "White racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture which has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II."1 Yet most Americans reply "not guilty" to the charge of racism. In an opinion survey conducted in April of 1968, white Americans disagreed by a fifty-three to thirty-five percent margin with the contention that the 1967 riots were brought on by white racism.2 Perhaps part of the disagreement between public opinion and the Kerner Commission stems from different definitions of "white racism." The average person is likely to reserve the emotionally loaded term "racism" for only the most extreme assertions of white supremacy and innate Negro inferiority. Finding that few of his associates express such views, he rejects the central conclusion of the riot commission. Perhaps he would be somewhat more likely to agree that historically white racism is responsible for the position of the black man in American society. The Kerner Commission Report, however, not only asserts that “race prejudice has shaped our history decisively" but claims further that "it now threatens to affect our future." The Commission validated its charge of racism by pointing to the existing pattern of racial discrimination, segregation, and inequality in occupation, education, and housing. But a distinction must be made between institutional racism and individual prejudice. Because of the influence of historical circumstances, it is theoretically possible to have a racist society in which most of the individual members of that society do not express racist attitudes. A society in which most of the good jobs are held by one race, and the dirty jobs by people of another color, is a society in which racism is institutionalized, no matter what the beliefs of its members are. For example, the universities of America are probably the least bigoted of American institutions. One would rarely, if ever, hear an openly bigoted expression at schools like Harvard, Yale, the University of Chicago, the University of California. At the same time, university faculties and students have usually been white, the custodians black. They have concerned themselves primarily with the needs and interests of the white upper middle and upper classes, and have viewed the lower classes, and especially blacks, as objects of study rather than of service. In this sense, they have, willy-nilly, been institutionally "white racist." |