The People: A Time of Violence & Tragedy

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As many sociologists see it, the Negro (along with most Puerto Ricans, Mexican-Americans and Appalachian whites) is part of a "subculture of poverty," and his riots are mainly economic in origin. But a U.C.L.A. study of the 1965 Watts riots found that it was not just the poorest Negroes who were riot-prone. "A significant number of Negroes, successful or unsuccessful, are emotionally prepared for violence as a strategy or solution to end the problem of segregation, exploitation and subordination," said the report. For those who are "better off," it added, resentment may be vented by joining a riot.

To the rest of the world, the televised glimpses of unsheathed bayonets, rumbling tanks and fire-gutted blocks in the heart of Detroit made it look as if the U.S. were on the edge of anarchy. "The outbreak has become something more than a race riot," said the Stockholm newspaper Aftonbladet. "It threatens to become a revolution of the entire underclass of America."

Only a very small minority of Negroes are in active rebellion against "Whitey," and only a small minority loot, but many more—well into the millions—look on with tolerance and even admiration.

In Los Angeles, a black bartender confessed, "Older Negroes have a hell of a time with this new generation." But in the next breath he sympathized with the youthful militants. "Don't get me wrong," he said. "It's what the white man deserves for sitting on his ass for 200 years. If he had taught these kids how to read and given them a job, then they wouldn't be a problem."

Wrongs & Disabilities. It is to the Los Angeles bartender and others in this ambivalent and genuinely torn sector of Negro opinion that Negro leaders, at the local as well as national levels, must address themselves. Last week, four of the nation's best known Negro leaders* spoke up. "Killing, arson, looting are criminal acts, and should be dealt with as such," they said. Noting that most damage inflicted by Negro rioters is at the expense of other Negroes, they added: "There is no injustice which justifies the present destruction of the Negro community and its people. This does not mean that we should submit tamely to joblessness, inadequate housing, poor schooling, humiliation and attack. It does require a redoubling of efforts to end these wrongs and disabilities."

The wrongs and disabilities have, in fact, been significantly reduced, certainly not ended. "We've come a long, long way," preaches Martin Luther King, "we've got a long, long way to go." The limited progress has come in many kinds of ways: long-ago philanthropies of Northern white idealists who financed many of the Negro colleges; the verve, bounce and guts of Negro athletes and entertainers; the quieter achievements of Negro professional and business people; the great national economic surges that have pulled millions of Negroes into Northern industrial employment; and in the past 13 years, since Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, a whole train of new laws and judicial decisions.

Of course it is not enough. The hope of Detroit, if there can be hope in such a landscape, is that lessons may have been learned, and new resolves taken.