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A review by kevin_shepherd
America on Fire: The Untold History of Police Violence and Black Rebellion Since the 1960s by Elizabeth Hinton
4.0
“What did you expect? I don’t know why we’re so surprised. When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for three hundred years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off.” ~Lyndon B. Johnson, commenting on the riots that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr, 1968
In 1968, under then President Lyndon Johnson, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, commonly referred to as the Kerner Commission, apprised government officials and lawmakers that any prospect of racial equity in America would be solely dependent on investment. The commission warned that, without the financial wherewithal, black communities were destined for a continuous and perpetual cycle of racial inequity.
“…time and time again, the decision was made to pursue a set of policies that were self-defeating at best, and grievously harmful at worst.”
Elizabeth Hinton’s America On Fire is a hard but crucially necessary lesson in American history. Spanning some sixty years, from 1960 to 2020, Hinton chronicles the repetitious political ineptitude of U.S. race relations.
1960s/1970s: Often under laws and ordinances that would never have been enforced in white communities (“fitting the description,” gathering in groups of two or more, “responding to a tip,” etc.), American cities and townships established an incarceration pipeline for black citizens via a recurring pattern of over-policing.
Hinton lays out the pattern: White over-policing breeds Black animosity. Black animosity generates Black grievances. Black grievances are met with White indifference. White indifference fuels Black rebellion. Black rebellion is countered with White retaliation. White retaliation results in Black people dying. Black people dying leads to (with no eye witnesses) White police officer exoneration, or (with lots of eye witnesses) White police officer acquittal. All of this leads to continued over-policing of Black communities and the cycle begins again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
“Now we know where we stand… and it’s at the bottom. We will act accordingly…” ~Horace B. Livingston Jr, Decatur Association for Black Action, 1968
An exhaustive analysis of every Black rebellion in America would have required volumes and volumes (in her notes Hinton references over 2,000 separate demonstrations, uprisings and outright revolts). Mercifully, no doubt in the interest of brevity and sanity, Hinton has limited AOF to a mere 382 pages - just enough to give her readers a sense of the enormity of the problem.
Solutions? Hinton makes it abundantly clear that the solution has been with us all along. Starting with Johnson’s Kerner Commission, the recommendations were there. We cannot invest a pittance in the communities and then roll barrels of cash into policing and prisons and expect conditions to improve. History has shown (see the notes for over 2,000 examples) that American leadership, read ‘majority white political leadership,’ has had its head up its proverbial ass for fifty+ years (and counting).
_________________________________________
The 1968 Kerner Commission Got It Right, But Nobody Listened
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/1968-kerner-commission-got-it-right-nobody-listened-180968318/
In 1968, under then President Lyndon Johnson, the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, commonly referred to as the Kerner Commission, apprised government officials and lawmakers that any prospect of racial equity in America would be solely dependent on investment. The commission warned that, without the financial wherewithal, black communities were destined for a continuous and perpetual cycle of racial inequity.
“…time and time again, the decision was made to pursue a set of policies that were self-defeating at best, and grievously harmful at worst.”
Elizabeth Hinton’s America On Fire is a hard but crucially necessary lesson in American history. Spanning some sixty years, from 1960 to 2020, Hinton chronicles the repetitious political ineptitude of U.S. race relations.
1960s/1970s: Often under laws and ordinances that would never have been enforced in white communities (“fitting the description,” gathering in groups of two or more, “responding to a tip,” etc.), American cities and townships established an incarceration pipeline for black citizens via a recurring pattern of over-policing.
Hinton lays out the pattern: White over-policing breeds Black animosity. Black animosity generates Black grievances. Black grievances are met with White indifference. White indifference fuels Black rebellion. Black rebellion is countered with White retaliation. White retaliation results in Black people dying. Black people dying leads to (with no eye witnesses) White police officer exoneration, or (with lots of eye witnesses) White police officer acquittal. All of this leads to continued over-policing of Black communities and the cycle begins again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
“Now we know where we stand… and it’s at the bottom. We will act accordingly…” ~Horace B. Livingston Jr, Decatur Association for Black Action, 1968
An exhaustive analysis of every Black rebellion in America would have required volumes and volumes (in her notes Hinton references over 2,000 separate demonstrations, uprisings and outright revolts). Mercifully, no doubt in the interest of brevity and sanity, Hinton has limited AOF to a mere 382 pages - just enough to give her readers a sense of the enormity of the problem.
Solutions? Hinton makes it abundantly clear that the solution has been with us all along. Starting with Johnson’s Kerner Commission, the recommendations were there. We cannot invest a pittance in the communities and then roll barrels of cash into policing and prisons and expect conditions to improve. History has shown (see the notes for over 2,000 examples) that American leadership, read ‘majority white political leadership,’ has had its head up its proverbial ass for fifty+ years (and counting).
_________________________________________
The 1968 Kerner Commission Got It Right, But Nobody Listened
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/1968-kerner-commission-got-it-right-nobody-listened-180968318/