[But the “riot effect” narrative contains a fatal flaw betrayed in the terminology itself: it rests on the assumption that “riots” are essentially random occurrences. For those who blame black America for black poverty, riots are distinguished not by their contingency or their spontaneity or their political cast, but by their irrationality. On this misreading of history, civil resistance has nothing to do with the underlying conditions that make it rational to rebel, or with the relations of power that make other avenues of action unavailable to the urban poor. To justify this assumption, the economists quote a forty-year old study purporting to show that “the severity of a disturbance, as well as its location, appears not to have been contingent upon Negro living conditions or their social or economic status.” And on the basis of this outdated observation, they see fit to eschew all alternative explanations for the condition of the black ghetto over the last several decades. What, then, are those alternatives? The first is an economic one. Serious social scientists have long linked the crisis in the cities to the collapse of their industrial base — the result of which has been a decline in demand for less-skilled labor and the growth and ghettoization of a surplus population. The effects of job losses have everywhere been disproportionately concentrated among black workers and black communities. In many of the “riot cities,” it is worth noting that the process of industrial restructuring predated the eruption of mass unrest by a decade or more. A second explanation centers on the role of institutionalized racism. Aptly labeled “American apartheid” by sociologists Doug Massey and Nancy Denton, the urban regime of residential segregation created a “federally sponsored ‘second ghetto’ in which blacks were isolated by class as well as by race.” Segregation went hand in hand with practices like redlining and blockbusting, driven by private developers, mortgage lenders, and the white elite. Such practices likely did more to depress property values than a riot possibly could. More importantly, they maintained a black ghetto wildly profitable for white capital. A third alternative links the fate of the inner city to the dynamics of class struggle in the North. Rebellions have tended to occur in cities where black workers also engaged in other forms of disruptive power, such as strikes and demonstrations. Riot or no riot, under such conditions, it is reasonable to assume that white business owners might feel compelled to take their money and run. It is also reasonable to assume that white politicians would be inclined to punish the rebellious poor with policies of planned abandonment. Scholars differ on the forces and factors that explain the scope and severity of urban rebellions. But beyond the looking-glass world of neoclassical economics, there is a growing body of evidence that the consequences of such structural forces were far more significant, persistent, and pernicious than those associated with the alleged riot effect. What effect, then — if any — does this type of resistance actually have? One possible answer is that it gets the goods. Historically, there is some evidence to support this hypothesis: take Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward’s work on poor people’s movements, or Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson’s research on democratization. But in the age of austerity, cities and states with rebellion are more likely to see resources redirected toward security services than social services. Another answer could be that a riot provides a pretext for elites to do what they were going to do anyway. Business owners can take the opportunity to move out of a neighborhood, but they can just as easily take the opportunity to move in. State managers can use rioting as an excuse for planned abandonment, or they can use it as an argument for redevelopment — as they have done to great effect in gentrifying areas of Oakland, Brooklyn, Cincinnati, and elsewhere. On this reading, the riot effect is not only a ruse, but also a rationalization of existing interests. It is as rational for communities capitalism deems superfluous to rebel as it is profitable for white power players to keep them in their place. But when the apologists for this state of affairs turn to social science for backup, it is worth remembering that their claims to truth remain as questionable as their claims to legitimacy.]
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 17:23:50 +0000
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