ADDED: From the Wikipedia article on the riots:
The violence escalated throughout [the second day], resulting in some 483 fires, 231 incidents reported per hour, and 1,800 arrests. Looting and arson were widespread. Black-owned businesses were not spared. One of the first stores looted in Detroit was Hardy's drug store, owned by blacks and known for filling prescriptions on credit. Detroit's leading black-owned women's clothing store was burned, as was one of the city's best-loved black restaurants. In the wake of the riots, a black merchant said, "you were going to get looted no matter what color you were."Firefighters of the Detroit Fire Department who were attempting to fight the fires were shot at by rioters. During the riots, 2,498 rifles and 38 handguns were stolen from local stores. It was obvious that the Detroit, County, and Michigan forces were unable to restore order.The city police were overwhelmed, and the Michigan State Police and the Wayne County Sheriff's Department came in. The Michigan National Guardsmen arrived but were "not authorized to arrest people." The governor, George Romney, wanted President Lyndon B. Johnson to send in federal troops, and Johnson too the position that Romney needed first to declare a "state of insurrection." Johnson pointed at the Insurrection Act, but it was also about the upcoming presidential election:
George Romney was expected to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968, and President Johnson, a Democrat, did not want to commit troops solely on Romney's direction.Romney also had trouble with the mayor:
Added to this was Mayor Jerome Cavanagh's own political and personal clash with Romney. Cavanagh, a young Irish Catholic Democrat who had cultivated harmonious relations with black leaders, both inside and outside the city, was initially reluctant to ask Romney, a Republican, for assistance.And John Conyers — then as now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives — opposed federal troops and thought he could help by "driving along 12th Street with a loudspeaker asking people to return to their homes."
Reportedly, Conyers stood on the hood of the car and shouted through a bullhorn, "We're with you! But, please! This is not the way to do things! Please go back to your homes!" But the crowd refused to listen. Conyers' car was pelted with rocks and bottles.Conyers joined the House of Representatives in 1965, and he is now the Dean of the United States House of Representatives, which means he's the longest-serving member of the house. He's been there 52 years, and he's 88.
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45 comments:
How's Detroit doing 50 years later, as 1/2 the population moved away?
50 years?
Wow, the dialogue hasn't changed much, but we've spent a lot of treasure trying to fix "the problem". It's almost like some people don't want to fix "the problem".
I'd like someone to explain to me "the problem." It sounds, you know, so simple.
I don't like Ike.
I love Ike. McKinnon (spelling?). “One of only a hundred black police officers.” Love you Ike!
Think it was Berneke (forgive me if I’m wrong) who said of the IMF that their primary fear regarding monetary policy, is rioting.
I’m no anarchist. Save that I didn’t vote for Hillary white white white. Nor for Trump white white white. So I'm an anarchist thataways. I’m damn sure rooting for Trump to drain the swamp. Down to Hayek and Darwin. If possible.
I blame Ali for all this: he wasn’t going to Vietnam (Khesanh 0802 - your field artillery, officer, was a wee before my time), to kill people who didn’t do violence against him. Come back, Ali. And that BU trained black man.
Anybody here, seen my old friends ...
NPR today was pimping the movie which it said covered the "rebellion." Not "rioting."
Minitru is hard at work.
Worthless generation. Cowards.
It must have been a hot time in the old town that night. And Fords was still going strong with very little Japanese competition. And MLK was alive and well.
Beats me why the black folks declared war on the City police.
I'm sure if there's a Hollywood movie, it will show Detroit Whites in a good light.
1. Police are racist.
2. Racist police must be opposed.
3. Therefore, lay waste to your own community.
Curious what the Society will be like that looks back on the Fiftieth Anniversary of Ferguson.
Maybe they will have jet-cars.
I am Laslo.
Kid Rock (1971) wasn't even born yet.
I think racism and police abuse were part of the problem, but the larger part of the problem is the claim that the only cause of riots are racism and police abuse. Until such time as whites become temperate and just in their dealings with blacks, blacks are entitled to act out their rage in any way they please......I read the review of the movie "Detroit". It doesn't sound like an honest account. That's the way it is nowadays. You can depict a bigoted cop, but God help you if you depict a black teenager with a penchant for impulsive violence and a community that doesn't ostracize impulsive criminals.
“Beats me why the black folks declared war on the City police.”
Reading with Mistress Mine. How “white noise” introduced into cell formations, pluripotent cells (cells that can ‘become fixed’ and stable, among many different potentials) "white noise," at just the right phase, causes seemingly stable cell states to become unstable. Cells attack themselves. Each other. Batshit. Maybe fight noise with more noise: passive, “Salt March.” Ford became unstable. Laslo's pedding jet-cars. Blade Runner. I dunno. Clueless.
I've been thinking about the "Summer of Love" comment on the earlier thread. One would think blacks rioting in their own neighbourhoods was something different from the Summer of Love. Latter: generally affluent white children, convinced the Establishment is doing some very wrong things, convinced that there must be more to life than their parents thought in the 50s. On the whole, First World problems. Black neighbourhoods in the big cities: yes, there were factory jobs and therefore more real prosperity than today. But: anything whites had done, had been done grudgingly. There had been repeated promises that blacks who succeeded (including success in the military, which was apparently being celebrated at the beginning of Day 1 of the Detroit riots) would be fully accepted; such promises were not kept. It's interesting that commenters have addressed divisions within the black community of the time: the clergy tended to be against drinking establishments, etc. I would guess the thinking was: thrift and hard work are the key to getting ahead; but also: we'd better not appear to be the kind of blacks who are stereotyped as lazy, etc. Black Pride, as I understand it, often meant: we will be exactly the kind of black who frightens whites.
"Wow, the dialogue hasn't changed much, but we've spent a lot of treasure trying to fix "the problem". It's almost like some people don't want to fix "the problem"."
All else aside, including all the tribal politics, the problem is that with the current state of technology "the problem" is insoluble.
About 9 months after black rioters in Detroit destroyed their own city, a similar uprising occurred in Chicago. 39 people died. $50 Million in damage.
Then, 4 months later came the 1968 Democrat convention in Chicago. This time it was a well-orchestrated rebellion mostly by white leftists.
Chicago Mayor Daley saw what happened in Detroit, Newark, Watts, and his own city just a few months before. He did not want his beautiful city destroyed like these other places.
So, he fought back hard. With the police. It was ugly and messy. Yes, the police overreacted in some places. But, you know how many people died? ZERO. 589 arrests, 119 police and 100 protesters were injured.
So, maybe Mayor Daley did something right?
Oh, by the way, Fuck the Left. They are psychos who destroy things.
Daley ran Chicago so that the city worked even as the white ethnic neighborhoods declined.
Now, it is going down the drain.
I was there at the 8-mile Rd. Armory with my M1 rifle (unloaded - they didn't trust us to know when not to shoot), my trumpet and my fellow National Guard Band members.
The business of what to call the Detroit Riot of 1967 is one of the biggest changes of the last 50 years.
When Ann Althouse wrote of it as "the 12th Street Riot," I thought that I had not heard that phrase in about 40 years. She is right, however! I definitely recall those of us in metro Detroit using that phrase. I had thought it a local thing. Maybe AA picked it up as a Michigan undergrad.
And for decades it was just the Detroit Riot. Often, "Detroit Riots" in the plural for reasons I don't quite get apart from the fact that as the days went on, Detroit, which is a big city geographically, had spasms of burning, looting and sniper fire in a variety of locations apart from 12th Street and Clairmont.
And now, activist culture is practically demanding that people (especially liberal media types) call it "rebellion" or "uprising." "Unrest" and "civil disturbance" get trotted out as well.
By any sensible definition, it was a riot.
The long term fortunes of the black community of Detroit might have been better if the response had been harsher and swifter, demonstrating a respect for black property owners. I expect a film sympathetic to rioters will tend to foment more of the same. Something to look forward to.
Detroit, which is a big city geographically, had spasms of burning, looting and sniper fire in a variety of locations apart from 12th Street and Clairmont.
Yes, I lived near the Merchandise Mart (a huge Home Depot-type store) on Livernois Ave, which was probably 10 miles away from 12th St and went up in flames a few days into the riots.
Chuck: "...By any sensible definition, it was a riot." Yes.
I grew up in Canada at that Tim; and all I remember is Gordon Lightfoot's "Black Day in July."
The effort of John Conyers seems both noble and pathetic from this historical distance.
In 1977 we saw somewhat similar behavior during the blackout in New York. The very instant that the lights went out, and with it the message that there was a larger social order at work, there came the sound of breaking glass. Looting was widespread and flagrant but opportunistic: one guy would smash a window, a hundred would swarm inside and take random stuff, absolutely worthless to them but which crippled or destroyed the businesses in these communities.
Don't ask me to apologize for these creatures.
Have we figured out what the problem is yet?
In the wake of the riots, a black merchant said, "you were going to get looted no matter what color you were."
Ah yes. Judged, not by the color of your skin, but by the content of your display windows.
AllenS said...
"Have we figured out what the problem is yet?"
Some have, some haven't.
"The effort of John Conyers seems both noble and pathetic from this historical distance."
"We're with you!"
Yeah, real noble. Really putting his ass on the line, that Conyers.
"But please! This is not the way to do things! Please go back to your homes!"
Pathetic? That, I'll grant you.
Would the ones who have figured out the problem, please explain it to me.
OH, NOES! What if we have a problem with no solution?
"Have we figured out what the problem is yet?"
Not yet understood sufficiently well to derive a strategy to work out a solution.
Thats part of the problem.
"OH, NOES! What if we have a problem with no solution?"
There is always a solution. Eventually all problems are solved.
Something solves them, even if no-one does.
Thank you, buwaya, I feel better now. Although, I'm still wondering what the problem is. If we knew what the problem is, then we could figure out how long it would take to fix, even if no-one does.
Eventually all problems are solved.
Something solves them, even if no-one does.
My old professor of surgery used to say, "Eventually bleeding stops."
The problem? Inner cities are poor.
The solution? Pour money into the inner cities.
Wait, haven't we done that the last 50 years? Yes, but not enough money, you rich capitalist.
Rinse, repeat every few years.
The problem, and solution, lies in the study of the brain.
We are still in the understanding the fundamentals part of this, and very far from knowing what we are doing with respect to interventions.
We do not understand, except in very vague terms, why some people are one way and others are another way.
Some comedians line at the time was "Romney didn't send in the Nationa Guard because he thought it was a Polish wedding"
AllenS said...
"Would the ones who have figured out the problem, please explain it to me."
Sure. Black people are genetically very different than white people, due to a long period in which they evolved independently. A large minority, possibly a majority of the blacks in America regard "civilization" as an unwelcome imposition, preventing them from pursuing their inclinations. They respond to this about the same way you would; they tolerate what they can see no way to avoid, but when possible they follow their inclinations, which are notably destructive. They end up in prison a lot.
I suppose you could throw in a bunch of happy horseshit about how society this and society that, but the idea that tweaking things around the edges is going to change the central issue is -- well, wrong.
You could also throw in some observations about the willingness of various groups, over the years, to encourage blacks to indulge a feeling of resentment and entitlement, as a means of attacking American society for various reasons of their own.
The idea that there is a "solution" for this "problem" strikes me as fanciful. Most whites adopt a strategy of avoidance, and because they are smarter and more resourceful than the ROTM black, that works fairly well. The blacks mostly visit their violence and stupidity on each other, and on the various poor whites and Latinos who are unable to avoid them.
That help?
Jupiter, that sounds like the problem, and what I've known since I've been able to think, is that there isn't a solution and never will be. You couldn't be more correct about whites and the avoidance thing. You can tell who doesn't have any contact with black people, and are all so willing to avoid the topic by calling those that challenge the problems with calls of "you're a racist". Amiright?
... and that's why the "problems" will get worse, and a lot worse. Too many white beta men in the country now, who are not only unwilling to confront the "problems", but will up their non-existence moral bullshit and yell RACISM even louder.
Feste said...
"white noise," at just the right phase,
White noise doesn't really have a phase, other than random.
AllenS,
I'm not quite as despondent as you seem to be. Fundamentally, blacks are a minority, and a fairly small one. There is a limit to the damage they can do, although that is hardly very comforting to the ones damaged.
The more serious problem is that the Leftists use the accusation of "racism" as an extremely effective bludgeon against their white opponents. And because acceptance of the fairly obvious points I laid out above is almost universally decried as "racism", the accusation sticks. We all know that we avoid blacks, with damned good reason. But to say so is career and social suicide. That is the problem we may be able to do something about. That is why I am displaying my "racism" on Althouse' blog. Because I am tired of being held responsible for a problem I did not cause and cannot solve. And I am sick of lying liars lying and telling me that acknowledging what is perfectly obvious to any thinking person is a pathological psychological failing on my part.
I'm not despondent at all. Life is good for me, although when I was younger, I didn't have a chance to live where I do now. As far as blacks being a fairly small minority is nonsense if you've ever lived were they are the majority.
We are on the same page.
We all know that we avoid blacks, with damned good reason. But to say so is career and social suicide.
As was the case with Derbyshire.
To some extent I agree with you but there was a time when blacks adopted the civilization they found themselves in and some still do.
What we have is a combination of factors that have stripped some of the civilization off.
In the 50s, when I was a teenager. there was much less violence and racism was far more than today. Black families kept boys pretty civilized. It's the old story about elephants. If there are not enough adult male elephants around, you get rogues.
Now we have had 50 years of Lyndon Johnson pathology and all hell has broken loose.
The crap about black men in prison is mostly just that, crap.
We need reform schools again. There are black kids who want to be civilized but they are bullied by the others. That ls why vouchers are necessary.
My sister told me Jesse Jackson went to some work site last weekend and complained the workers were all white.
First, in Chicago, is almost 100% chance they are union and two there are not enough blacks that can qualify for those jobs.
The solution for the left is affirmative action but that is how you get Officer Noor.
"To some extent I agree with you but there was a time when blacks adopted the civilization they found themselves in and some still do."
Plenty of honest, decent hard-working black Americans make their solid contribution to society every day, and there is a small but growing sector of white Americans who are nearly as pathological as the "black community". But none of that changes the fact that if you live around blacks, they will make you miserable in dozens of ways, large and small.
Which is why I don't. And that certainly does make me a "racist". I am conscious of race, I am prejudiced on the basis of race, and I treat people differently on the basis of race.
I am also aware that men are vastly more likely to commit a wide variety of crimes than women are. And I treat people differently on that basis as well. No one seems to get too excited about that.
"Black people are genetically very different than white people, due to a long period in which they evolved independently. A large minority, possibly a majority of the blacks in America regard 'civilization' as an unwelcome imposition, preventing them from pursuing their inclinations. They respond to this about the same way you would; they tolerate what they can see no way to avoid, but when possible they follow their inclinations, which are notably destructive. They end up in prison a lot."
I wonder how you can see well enough through the layer of spittle coating your computer screen to be able to type this shit.
Cookie,
Is there a statement in there that you think is false? Or do you just feel that it is impolite to state what everyone knows to be true?
I notice you don't seem too upset at the terrible things I wrote about men. Don't you feel a person must be deranged to state that men commit more crimes than women? Or do you think that is an obvious truth, with an evident biological basis?
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