-Caveat Lector-
Whenever I hear or read the term 'race riot', it brings me back to the
late 1960s and a very enlightening article I read then on the subject...
It was written by a white sailor who had been aboard a U.S. Naval ship
which had had what the mainstream press had called 'a race riot'...at the
time there was much racial unrest in U.S. cities which themselves were
experiencing what were touted as 'race riots'...and this unrest was
seemingly being transferred into the military, where a couple of
disturbances were duly reported as being 'racial' in nature...
Well, the author of this particular article I read was both an eyewitness
and a participant in the 'event' onboard this particular ship which had
been reported as a 'race riot'...
Except according to the author, it was anything BUT that....
Seems there had been mounting tensions for quite some time between the
'old guard' personnel and the 'uppity' newcomers on board; these tensions
were along POLITICAL lines, not racial...but in fact did tend to play out
somewhat racially.
In other words, there was a contingent on board ship that wanted to see
changes made...a lot of it was anti-Viet Nam War activism (many young men
volunteered for the Navy in those days as a way to avoid being drafted by
the Army and being sent to fight the ground war there), some of it was a
general leftist/liberal political sensibility, some of it was a
philosophy of 'social justice'...
And mostly it was over little things, like certain white boys wanting to
wear sideburns a tad too long, or their hair a little too much over the
collar...and also a good many black sailors (blacks had just recently
been admitted into the Navy in greater numbers than had been allowed in
the past) wishing to wear afros...
It seems silly and superficial now, almost 35 years later...but these
WERE issues that encompassed greater issues back then...
And the 'old guard' that opposed these uppity newcomers were exclusively
white....conservative...wore crewcuts....
And went out of their way to pick fights with those they deemed
'troublemakers'...very often with those they deemed 'uppity' blacks, but
just as often with whites they deemed 'hippies'...
Picture "Mr. Roberts" with a bunch of Archie Bunkers calling the shots,
and you get the picture.
And one day on this ship, it all came to a head. The white 'hippy' boys
and most of the 'uppity' blacks decided they weren't going to stand for
the harassment any more...
Can't remember who actually started the particular incident that led to
what was termed a 'race riot', but the author of the article pointed out
that the disturbance was due to POLITICAL and PHILOSOPHICAL ideologies,
not racial...it just so happened that most of the blacks on board, and
who had taken part in the 'riot' were of one political persuasion, and
that those who opposed them just happened to be white...
But the 'official story' neglected to mention all those liberal white
'hippy' boys who had taken part in the disturbance on the same side as
all the blacks...
And what the author pointed out was why it was to the advantage of 'the
powers that be' to report such disturbances as 'race riots', even though
the disturbance may have vastly different causes...
Because by reporting it as a race riot, it reduces the underlying cause
to nothing more than tension between different racial
groups...conveniently ignores or outright distorts the REAL issues at the
core of the unrest so that the majority of the public isn't told about
what is REALLY going on, what the REAL problem is...
Therefore, John and Jane Q. Public can then dismiss it as something that
doesn't concern them...
In the case I just described, the American public was lulled into a
complacency...the incident was reported as a 'race riot', which made it
sound like an isolated incident involving a very narrow issue; instead of
being reported as the end result of escalating tensions amongst political
factions within the military, something which was NOT limited to the one
ship where fighting had broken out but indeed was being experienced
throughout not only the Navy, but all of the Armed Forces...
So since that day, I've always taken reports of 'race riots' with a grain
of salt, and ask myself 'okay, what REALLY is going on here that the
powers-that-be don't want the public to know about?'
June
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