The Crown Heights Riot of 1991
Anti-Semitism has been prevalent throughout the world since the establishment of the Jewish religion and unfortunately, traces of it can still be found to this day in the United States. What exactly is anti-Semitism? It is the intense dislike for and prejudice against the Jews; it can range anywhere from simple opposition to the Jews to vicious hatred displayed through physical torment. Some examples of the more publicized cases of violence against the Jews include the attack of Irish workers and police on the funeral procession of Rabbi Jacob Joseph in New York City in 1902, the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915, the assassination of Alan Berg in 1984, as well as the Crown Heights riots of 1991. I have chosen to discuss the Crown Heights riots of 1991 simply because I believe the events are more recent and therefore, hold themselves to be more valid and up to date with the anti-sentiment shown towards the Jews today.
The Crown Heights Riot was a three-day riot in the Crown Heights neighborhood of New York City that started on August 19,1991. To this day, we do not know the cause of the riots, what ignited the rioters or what the hidden meaning behind the actual incident was. Many deem this controversial riot as purely an anti-Semitic outburst, even calling it the “Crown Heights pogrom” (1). Besides anti-Semitism, anti-police sentiment was also displayed during this riot. What amazes me the most about this incident is that the events that led up to these riots, its legacy, and its record of ever happening have been politically and socially altered to meet everyone’s assertion. Background information allows us to see that tensions existed in the neighborhood on behalf of both parties; the Ha...
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... Halloween parade. There is a storefront mediation center, a black and Jewish mothers group, and an effort to add black youngsters to the private Jewish security patrols. Even though tensions still remain and are just buried beneath the surface, one cannot escape the fact that they live side by side and must face each other every day. Hopefully, with tolerance and education, both communities will learn to live at peace with one another for the right reasons, and not the wrong.
1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Heights_Riot
2 Shapiro, Edward S. Crown Heights: Blacks, Jews, and the 1991 Brooklyn Riot. Brandeis University Press, New York: 2006. http://www.upne.com/1-58465-561-5.html
3 Kifner, John and Lee, Felicia R. “In Crown Heights, a Decade of Healing after Riots, but Scars Remain,” August 19,2001. http://www.racematters.org/crownheightsscars.htm.
The author believes that the struggle of Jews vs anti-Semites is really just another form of the “rich vs poor struggle” which is existent through many societies in our modern era. The anti-Semites will take out their aggression against the Jews because Jews are an easy target. It is easier for an anti-Semite to accept that he works a hard job for little pay just to make a factory boss rich. However, the question is raised of what good would that do? The anti-Semite needs the job, so he can't quit, and causing an uproar towards his boss would only make him even more unhappy so instead, he channels his hatred in manageable ways, such as toward Jews.
A timeline of the 90s features similar white on black hate discrimination as found in The Watsons. In 1991, Rodney King was brutally beaten by white LAPD officers following a car chase. 1993 saw members of the Fourth Reich Skinheads, who attempted to bomb a church in Los Angeles and kill Rodney King, get arrested for their plots (Ross). The year 1993 also featured the release of the very first black American Girl doll; her name was Addy Walker. This first doll was depicted ...
Gilbert, Ben W. Ten blocks from the White House: Anatomy of the Washington Riots of 1968. FA Praeger, 1968.
Anti-semitism originates back to the Middle Ages, when Christians believed that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus. They were also accused of the ritual murder of Christian children in what were called blood libels. The main idea of racial anti-semitism was developed and presented by a philosophist named Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, explaining that the Je...
Anti-Semitism is the hatred and discrimination of those with a Jewish heritage. It is generally connected to the Holocaust, but the book by Helmut Walser Smith, The Butcher’s Tale shows the rise of anti-Semitism from a grassroots effect. Smith uses newspapers, court orders, and written accounts to write the history and growth of anti-Semitism in a small German town. The book focuses on how anti-Semitism was spread by fear mongering, the conflict between classes, and also the role of the government.
When students across the United States study the 1940’s, one main topic is focused on, World War II. Students learn that during the forties, Europe was war torn and America sent its troops overseas to fight in some of the most infamous battles of the twentieth century. But what is left out of history lessons is what was going on American soil when the battles across the ocean were raging on. This decade was a racially charged time in American history, even though this fact is over shadowed by the Nazis of Germany in history books. Several race riots occurred in the forties. Even though they were equal in violence to the riots of the Civil Rights Movement in the sixties, many Americans forget the riots of the forties. The biggest and bloodiest race riot of the 1940’s took place in Detroit, Michigan, in June of 1943. Several publications covered the riots, and none of the printed facts ever matched up until years later. This rioting resulted from a rumor that flowed through city streets. The rumor and the riot that it caused destroyed an entire city and many human lives. James Baldwin emphasizes the historical significance of rumors and uses this theme in his essay, “Notes of a Native Son,” to highlight the struggle toward equality.
Once called the Public Housing capital in the United States, Newark was receiving more money than any other city from the federal government to clear slums and build public housing complexes. People like Louis Danzig who was the head of the Newark Housing Authority (NHA) used the federal funds the city received to destroy low income housing of minorities in Newark, then build public housing on the outskirts of the city putting all the poor minorities in these areas. The police brutalized the cities African-American citizens numerous times with no repercussions. The city was being segregated and African-American Newark residents started to feel more and more marginalized. In 1967 things finally came to ahead as an African-American cab driver was arrested and beat badly by the Newark Police Department and when rumor spread that he had died in police custody. Though the cab driver was in fact brought to the hospital, a group gathered out in front of the police station and started throwing bricks and other objects at the police station. The riot went on for six days and has shaped the image of Newark to this day the riots have given the city a negative appearance that still lingers.
The beating of Rodney King from the Los Angeles Police Department on March 3, 1991 and the Los Angeles riots resulting from the verdict of the police officers on April 29 through May 5, 1992 are events that will never be forgotten. They both evolve around one incident, but there are two sides of ethical deviance: the LAPD and the citizens involved in the L.A. riots. The incident on March 3, 1991 is an event, which the public across the nation has never witnessed. If it weren’t for the random videotaping of the beating that night, society would never know what truly happened to Rodney King. What was even more disturbing is the mentality the LAPD displayed to the public and the details of how this mentality of policing led up to this particular incident. This type of ethical deviance is something the public has not seen since the civil rights era. Little did Chief Gates, the Chief of the Los Angeles Police Department, and the LAPD know what the consequences of their actions would lead to. Moving forward in time to the verdict of those police officers being acquitted of the charges, the public sentiment spiraled into an outrage. The disbelief and shock of the citizens of Los Angeles sparked a mammoth rioting that lasted for six days. The riots led to 53 deaths and the destruction of many building. This is a true but disturbing story uncovering the ethical deviance from the LAPD and the L.A. riots. The two perspectives are from the Rodney King incident are the LAPD and the L.A. riots.
Winter, J. (2002, Jan). The Death of American Antisemitism by Spencer Blakeslee. American Sociological Association. Retrieved Mar 2, 2014, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3089419
The book begins by giving a brief background into the setting of America at the onset of the war. It details an anti-Semitic America. It also explains most of the anti-Semitism as passive, which ordinarily would do little harm, but during a holocaust crisis became a reason for America’s inaction.
On August 1, 1943, Harlem ?Boiled over,? according to NAACP leader Walter White (NY Times, 17). The start of the event was attributed to one, ?Private Robert Bandy, the 26-year-old Negro soldier?who is charged with attacking a white policeman who was arresting a Negro woman in a Harlem hotel? (New York Times, 17). Rumors soon spread that police officers had killed a black soldier who was trying to protect his mother. This caused a momentous outburst of rioting destroying much of Harlem. The statistics of the riot vary depending on the source, but around 500 persons were injured, five dead, 400-500 arrested, and property damage estimated at 500,000 to a million dollars. ...
What were the causes of the prison riots in the 1990`s and how effective was the government response?
The statement written by the clergymen and directed at Martin Luther King Jr. was a direct action to manage the “game” and “regulate the action,” as Michael Schwalbe theorized (163). By detaining King for “parading without a permit” the Birmingham Police Force attempted to manage King’s actions with punishment (King, par. 14). By denying King the “First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest” (14) the Birmingham Police Department is protecting their “identity stakes” (Schwalbe, 165), of white privilege. The white power structure described in King’s letter was “to preserve the evil system of segregati...
On July 27, 1919, a young black man named Eugene Williams swam past an invisible line of segregation at a popular public beach on Lake Michigan, Chicago. He was stoned by several white bystanders, knocked unconscious and drowned, and his death set off one of the bloodiest riots in Chicago’s history (Shogun 96). The Chicago race riot was not the result of the incident alone. Several factors, including the economic, social and political differences between blacks and whites, the post-war atmosphere and the psychology of race relations in 1919, combined to make Chicago a prime target for this event. Although the riot was a catalyst for several short-term solutions to the racial tensions, it did little to improve race relations in the long run. It was many years before the nation truly addressed the underlying conflicts that sparked the riot of 1919. This observation is reflected in many of author James Baldwin’s essays in which he emphasizes that positive change can only occur when both races recognize the Negro as an equal among men politically, economically and socially.
The Los Angeles riots were a release of pressure that had build up from the innocent charging of Officer Laurence M. Powell and other Police officers that "Used excessive force" on Rodney King on March 3, 1991, but that was not the only reason.(8) In the words of a singer singing about the riots "They said it was for the black man, they said it was for the Mexican, but not for the white man, but if you look at the streets it wasn't about Rodney King, It's bout this f****d up situation and the f****n' police."(9) Did the riots even have anything to do with King? Was King a minor reason for this to happen, or did King put the level of pressure right over the top? Whatever way you see it, the fact is that on April 29, 1992, anarchy was set free in Los Angeles and before the papers could write about the happenings in this city of angels, the writing on the walls could tell it all.