1/ Much has been made about the late 60s and how the present situation does not resemble that. I wrote a piece saying the same thing abt the situation a few years ago, in light of civil unrest at that time. I am updating it, and I am not as optimistic... shorturl.at/uwGH7
2/ Is it 1968? 1968 was not even 1968. By that I mean it was the byproduct of years of frustration with a lack of socio-economic opportunity-- and ongoing racial oppression-- in *spite* of the civil rights movement. The VRA and CRA did very little for AA outside of the south.
3/ Banking, job and police discrimination continued unabated, esp in urban centers. The escalated every year from 64 onward. 67 was in some ways worse than 68 if you factor out the intensity of the response to MLK's murder in 68.
4/ and for years after civil unrest continued in different forms. Anti-war activism was far more violent after 68, on through the early 70s. Periodization is always tricky, but I teach 64-74 to my students as "The Age of Social Upheaval."
5/ but it is worth noting that the economic outlook at that time for all Americans was far better than what we may well face in the months ahead. The backdrop of inequality, mass unemployment and food insecurity was enough to fuel outbreaks of violent, civil unrest in the 30s
6/... without an obvious racial component and without the kind of fragmented but widespread media environment we have now. Add that to something like the 60s stew of racial oppression and response, and I worry things could get very bad.
7/ That is especially true because the type of people I write about-- the modern term for them is accelerationists-- are seeing the same opportunity they saw in the late 60s social dynamics.
8/ It remains (much to my frustration) off the radar of most scholars of racist terrorism but accelerationist ideas go back at least six decades. It is not a byproduct of 1980s developments in white supremacy. I can show it in the late 1940s.
9/ The narrative is lost in what seems like conventional anti-integrationist violence (including mob violence) but it is easy to spot if you see who is pulling the strings, inflaming the masses, etc and dig into their motivations.
10/ They did not make their agendas obvious because their agendas often involved obscure religious intepretations and targets outside the grievance radius of the rank-and-file (e.g. Jews + blacks, not just blacks.) So they took advantage of the late 60s social unrest
11/ Hoping to ignite a holy race war. They failed. But the same opportunities are presenting themselves to modern white supremacists and nationalists. There are already hints that they may be on the seen in several cities now, stoking violence. They will not get their race war.
12/ But I fear they may provoke a whole bunch of violence and damage along the way. Wish I was not as despondent.
ManI wish twitter had an edit function. In /3 it is "things escalated" ... in /11 it is "on the scene"
