The Momentum of Riots

Almost all of the force behind riots comes from the sense of power and safety found in numbers. The pressure of the crowd also keeps the participants from thinking effectively as individuals. The climactic march during the story In Darkness and Confusion by Ann Petry is a great example. While the lead character, William Jones, has been given plenty of personal reasons to lash out, once the mob begins to march, the rest of the crowd seems to follow instinctively. A fight between a cop and a soldier that results in a shooting is what initially unites the crowd, bringing them out onto the street. As the mass of people begins to file towards the hospital, to learn if the soldier survived, William explicitly states he feels as if he has lost his individuality in the mob, but then he realizes he is surrounded by people exactly like him. Together, they are capable of anything.


This scene also shows how quickly an idea can travel through such a mob. The crowd seems to move with one mind and one heart; William describes the sound of the crowd marching as a "pulse beat", slow, powerful, and building. The people in the crowd chatter with each other, expressing their irritation with the cops and their fears that the soldier was already dead. Most interesting is how an offhand comment from William himself: "They moved the black cops out." The near-rioting crowd - all African-American - is being watched exclusively by white cops. The comment spreads throughout the crowd, becoming a "whisper of hate on the still hot air." The crowd absorbs it, and it becomes part of their marching rhythm as they repeat it to each other.

Violence In Economics

The recent Recession is a prime example of how the slightest bit of anxiety in the markets can have drastic effects on politics and the economy. Capitalistic economies are inherently unstable, and frequently go through cycles of gain and loss. Often, rapid upswings in the economy only lead to worse downturns, due to the "crisis of surplus capital." The Crisis inevitably results when a small portion of the populace accumulates so much excess wealth, that there is nowhere for that money to go except into further investments. This creates a sort of feedback loop - which inevitably results in an economic bubble. These bubbles bursting flawlessly predict economic suffering. The fallout from these burst bubbles are also a direct contributor to the sort of panic that pervades poor times for the economy.

As economic leaders begin to panic, those feelings of fear flow into the common citizen as well. The chaos at the start of the Great Depression is the worst example of this in history, but even today the Tea Party and Occupy movements demonstrate this. It is these panicked citizens who stand the largest chance of turning riotous or violent, since they often see no other way to fight back against the threat of economic failure, or even draw the attention of those in power.

A constant theme throughout racist or sectarian propaganda is the dehumanization of the opposing party.  People instinctually attempt to make themselves feel better about themselves and their position, and often the easiest way to accomplish this is by reducing anyone different to the status of a monster. This form of denial has been used to justify the worst atrocities in human history. Paul Lawrence Dunbar’s stories “The Scapegoat” and “The Lynching of Jube Benson” both highlight this sort of behavior in early America. The titular scapegoat of “The Scapegoat” is Robison Asbury, a black man who becomes an idol to his community and enters politics. When he wins the election he enters, he is instantly undone after the opposing party claims fraud and his supporters desert him. “He must have been a crook!” his opponents shout, too steeped in denial to admit defeat. “The Lynching of Jube Benson,” meanwhile, has a doctor lament the racist teachings from his childhood that led him to murder his black assistant after suspecting him of raping and murdering a white woman. He became so focused on finding the man who killed the girl he was infatuated with that he refused to think rationally or listen to his suspect.

The best example of this sort of denial and dehumanization comes from the mouths of the propagandists themselves. “The Birth of a Nation” remains one of the most infamous – and influential – films of American history. The film depicts Northerner Americans as tyrants, leading the savage blacks on an all-out assault on the South during the Civil War. Black politicians are presented as drunkards and louts, whites who sympathize with blacks are portrayed as sniveling, depraved cowards. The good Southern people, of course, are shown as innocent, helpless saints, waiting to be saved by the shining knights of the KKK. The South fights valiantly, the Klan rides to the rescue, and the evils of Reconstruction are purged from the world with musket fire and bravery, or so the movie claims. The truth, of course, is simply that Reconstruction was undone by politics and corporate conspiracy, and another hundred years passed before black people could even dream of being treated as human.

Most disturbingly, these trends continue even today. The lines may have shifted, but politics remains much the same. Today’s boogiemen are “gays”, “terrorists”, and “socialists”, rather than the “negroes” and “communists” of days past, but their treatment is exactly the same. “Socialist”, “communist”, and “big government” are all swearwords used to degrade any political or economic policy anyone sees as digging too far into their pocket – silently ignoring and denying any positive possible, or even the suggestion that one should actually contribute to society. Meanwhile, gay marriage is defamed with exactly the same rhetoric used to defame interracial marriage during the Fifties. Gays themselves are labeled a threat and berated.  Even the very real threat of religious extremism and terrorism is turned into a buzzword, to be thrown about as an insult, and all too often the same people who accuse their enemies of “supporting Islamic terrorism!” are the very same people who enable the politely unmentioned Christian extremist movements right here in the United States. The monsters in the closet and under the bed exist only to keep people from looking at what they’re sleeping with.

Repeating History

Since the beginning of American society, there has been a cycle of revolt and violence. Times of stress, economic depression, or war seem to inevitably stir oppressed or downtrodden people to lash out against what they see as causes for their suffering. The "Tea Party" and "Occupy" movements are merely the most recent example of this trend, which extends all the way back to the Revolutionary War and the founding of the United States. Almost always, these violent outbursts are targeted at racial or political targets. The revolution against British rule is the most obvious example, but other examples include the New York City Draft Riots and the violence perpetrated against African-Americans throughout US history.

America is often seen as a land of promise; the "American Dream" offers a wonderful life and infinite success. However, for too many Americans, the Dream goes unfulfilled. This is what pushed the Irish immigrant population of New York to violence during the Civil War Draft Riots. The rioters lashed out at the rich, who were able to avoid the draft, and blacks, who the Irish saw as threats to their job security and safety. Between their poor lives and the threat of the draft, the immigrants felt utterly betrayed by the United States. That same sense of betrayal that drives today's political movements, in the US and abroad.