Race as the basis for domestic conflict in America
The willingness to say terrible things to one another often presages conflict.
Something strange happened on Twitter today. Without repeating the hashtags verbatim, I’ll just share this from a Twitter Spaces event:
WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT
This is just one example of some of high-temperature racial rhetoric that flooded Twitter today. You can look the rest of it up, if you so dare.
Race is arguably one of the hottest flashpoints for domestic conflict in the United States today. I’m not going to go into the reasons why, as anyone who’s been alive long enough ought to know. This country arguably has a considerable amount of baggage concerning the matter of race/ethnicity, but so do most other countries in the world.
The difference? I believe that the U.S., more so than most other countries in the world, have managed race/ethnic relations far better and in a relatively short period of time. In a span of less than 20 years, the country went from non-stop protests, riots, and racial violence to a state of relative tranquility, a goal that would’ve taken most other countries much longer to achieve. The cost was high, but it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t worth paying. Having such a wide range of races and ethnicities live amongst each other isn’t as easy as it seems and Americans have come to take the status quo for granted, as if this is how it’s “supposed” to be.
Ideally, yes. But, in practice? No. People, being the tribalistic creatures they are, generally seek refuge in those who look like them, speak the same language as them, and worship the same god as them. This may come as a disheartening surprise to many, but history bears this out. America’s own history is proof of this. Certainly, slavery complicates the matter considerably - after all, many Black Americans never had a choice as to where they wanted to live and who they wanted to live amongst. Neither did countless other peoples of the world.
I mention all this to accentuate the fact that we’ve made tremendous progress, despite all the toil and tears, but all that progress is seemingly being undone. If social media is, as I believe, folks saying the quiet part out loud, I can attest, partly from personal experience, that those who speak openly on social media often do the talking for the “silent majority.” The undoing was years, if not decades, in the making, and a confluence of unfortunate events seems to be increasing racial tensions in the country:
Increasing eagerness to use the power of the state to render what some see as equitable and racially-just policies;
Economic uncertainty;
Government corruption, dishonesty, failure to deliver results, and increasing unaccountability;
Racist and virulent rhetoric from the Left, including from relatively mainstream figures;
Angry and unyieldingly reactionary rhetoric from the Right, also increasingly from relatively mainstream figures;
The entrenchment of Critical Race Theory (CRT), identity politics, and the ideology of “Wokeism” in nearly all our major institutions.
At the risk of overstating things, the relative racial harmony the U.S. has enjoyed the last several decades can be undone with the right amount of stress and temperature and the rhetoric of the day is a sure sign that things are headed in the wrong direction. In fact, in 2018, a third of respondents in a poll stated they believed race relations had worsened since the 1960s, a rather disturbing finding, given the amount of progress the country has made. While most respondents still believe race relations had improved, the fact so many, including most Black respondents, felt otherwise means the achievements of the last several decades are viewed as failures in the eyes of millions of Americans. And if the last several decades have been a failure, what’s the point of staying the course? You can’t improve a failure, after all. You can only scrap it and replace it. But with what?
I said in a previous entry that terrible things can start with words. The willingness to say terrible things to one another often presages conflict. After all, conflict never develops in a vacuum and people will often use history and old grievances to justify rhetorical and, eventually, physical violence.
Which leads to the question everyone wants to know the answer to, but nobody wants to ask: is an American race war somewhere in the cards? Very simply, I believe the answer to be “no.”
South Africa and Zimbabwe (formerly Rhodesia) were two countries that, for decades, were viewed as on the verge of a race war, given their respective histories. And while neither country has avoided racial violence, it has largely manifested at lower levels. The long-feared eruption of mass racial conflict hasn’t occurred and even the mass rioting this past summer in South Africa could hardly be considered a race war. If it didn’t happen in two countries in far worse shape than the U.S., what does it say about the prospects of it happening here?
The country would have to be polarized to the point where the primary belligerents are Black and White. Most of the racial discourse in the country is centered on the relationship between Blacks and Whites, although other races often end up in the discussion. Still, most of these other races have proven to be rhetorical allies at best and would likely elect to remain out of the line of fire to assure their own safety. But the idea that everyone would come to identify themselves firmly with either Blacks or Whites seems very unlikely.
In terms of preventing civil war, our diversity is our strength in this one regard. Ask yourself: if a civil war broke out today, which side would you be on? Does your side even really exist? If it does, does it possess any kind of critical mass to be able to wage any level of armed conflict? It’s not an easy question to answer, because we’d be contemplating having to turn on co-workers and neighbors, who may not share our political views, but still largely live in peace with, maybe even friends with. America’s a polarized country, but we’re not quite to the point where everyone balkanizes along the lines of the former Yugoslavia, which had a much longer and bloodier history to draw upon. Again, our diversity, both as a society and at an individual level makes balkanization a very confusing affair.
Despite their cultural preeminence and increasing footprint in politics, Black Americans still make up just 13% of the population. White Americans, by comparison, still make up over 70% of the population. If we accept the likely premise that the “warriors” comprise the minority of any belligerent faction, unless someone manages to be able to organize, arm, and direct these opposing forces over a territory as large as the U.S., the math simply doesn’t work out and certainly not in the favor of those making up 13% of the population.
For all the hateful rhetoric that gets passed around, nobody seems willing (yet) to do anything about it, not in any statistically meaningful sense. It’s long been known that both Whites and Blacks are criminally victimized by someone of their own race in the vast majority of instances. Interracial violence comprises a minority share of violent crime in the country (though it’s worth noting Whites are more likely to be victimized by Blacks than vice versa).
Finally, while we can’t seem to stop talking about race in this country, the underlying issues causing deep polarization go well beyond race. They’re more cultural and economic than anything else. It’s just that malign actors such as academics, activists, the media, and politicians weaponize race as a cynical means of shutting the other side down in hopes of imposing their will upon the country.
I’ll say it again - race relations in this country aren’t as bad as they often seem. Yes, there exists open hostility, but, like South Africa and Zimbabwe, it hasn’t managed to turn into an unhinged, open-season level of violence yet. It seems everyone is managing the hostilities by, for the most part, avoiding each other (which is somewhat reassuring).
Furthermore, whatever great upheaval lies up the road will see this country fracture not along racial lines, but along class and cultural lines. Will race factor into these fault lines? Absolutely - it is, after all, “intersectional.” But, unlike in the former Yugoslavia and other places on Earth, race isn’t the definitive dividing line. It’s just that race has proven a very potent weapon for exacerbating already existing divides and for causing harm to America’s cohesion and psyche.
That said, things can change. For no reason should you ever think that the rhetoric like that heard on Twitter Spaces today ought to be dismissed as mere psycho-talk. After all, Darrell Brooks, who murdered six and injured over 40 on November 21 in Waukesha, WI, was arguably psychotic, yet he inflicted an unfathomable level of carnage that changed lives forever. Racial tensions are definitely increasing and will continue to increase as times get harder, especially with malign actors in the media bent on exacerbating tensions, with Waukesha being an example of what can occur in a fraught environment. We are likely to see an increase in race-related crimes, civil unrest, increasing self-segregation, and the rhetoric is likely to remain hot as ever. These were things we saw back in the good times, so why would they decrease in the bad times?
In keeping with the theme of this blog, just as worrying about a civil war is rather pointless, given how bad things would have to get for us to get there, so is worrying about a race war. Racial violence is terrible, whether it occurs on a small scale or large scale. We should spend more of our time figuring out ways of avoiding it, protecting ourselves from it, and seeking out men and women of goodwill, no matter our skin color. Only through this can we navigate the tough times ahead and emerge with our souls intact on the other side.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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