Thread by @Noahpinion

1/Two final thoughts on "Days of Rage".
amazon.com/Days-Rage-Unde…

First, one thing the book made me realize, which I had not realized before, is how many of the 70s white radicals had these weird, creepy White Savior complexes.

2/The book emphasizes - and proves with repeated quotes - that white radicals like the SLA and the Weather Underground saw themselves as fighting mainly for the cause of Black America, rather than for communism or to end the Vietnam War per se.

3/But it's not clear that Black America actually wanted these middle-class white lefties' help. The Black Panthers, for example, refused to cooperate with the Weather Underground, thought they were crazy, and once even beat them up.

4/The Symbionese Liberation Army did have one black member, but after he was killed, they fell to pieces in part because they didn't think any white person was fit to lead their revolution...but they were all white.

5/When the Weather Underground re-emerged after a period of inactivity and tried to unite and reinvigorate the radical Left, they briefly tried to switch to a race-neutral Marxist working-class thing...but they were excoriated and attacked for it (by other white people).

6/One vengeful (white) guy who had been kicked out of Weather took the opportunity to force Weather leaders to submit to creepy "criticism/self-criticism" sessions where they admitted that their support for orthodox Marxism was racist and that they had betrayed Black America.

7/Again and again, the picture emerges of a weird psychodrama in which these middle-class white Americans convinced themselves that they were warriors fighting for a Black America that neither needed nor particularly wanted these white saviors.

8/The second interesting thing Days of Rage made me realize is just how thoroughly the underground of the 70s was ignored by America.

These folks blew up thousands of buildings, killed a couple people here and there, robbed tons of banks...and people barely noticed.

9/In the end, all of the Weather people and many of the other white lefty underground people got very light sentences (if any), and basically went back to middle-class life, mostly getting jobs as teachers and professors.

10/Many who got heavier sentences (who tended to be nonwhite) later had their sentences commuted or were pardoned by presidents Carter and Clinton. A few broke out of jail and went to Cuba, and the U.S. didn't really try to chase them down.

11/"Days of Rage" sometimes tries to play up the threat, the violence, and the extremism of the 70s lefty underground, but the overall impression the book paints is one of irrelevance and pointlessness.

12/70s radical leftism became this bizarre little episode in American history that everyone - supporters, opponents, and bystanders alike - basically just agreed to forget.

13/I think the real lesson here is that the winds of politics, public consciousness, and public opinion can shift very fast, and that what people consider important or scary varies widely between different places and times.

An interesting lesson for the modern day.

(end)