A Word on Words; 3127; Shelia Smith Mckoy

so you know once again welcome to word on words when whites riot that's what we talk about today that's the new book of sheila smith mccoy welcome to world wars it's good to have you talk about when white riot i said good heavy you to talk about a subject that's very very painful for a lot of people in the book albright it can be painful to read let's begin by talking about images of riots and then the new deal quite candidly with how some people say one thing and they mean something else white riot means one thing black riot means something else it really depends on who's speaking and who's listening and as you said it is a very painful book too to me is not a typical coffee table book because it does talk about something

that summer hits at the core of american lives and afghan south africa might indeed something that we continue to come back too though somewhat unwilling we wonder why we always come back to racial violence and so i wanted to look at this idea of a white riot specifically because an american indeed in south africa when people think of riot they don't think of a love anything having to do with people who are a part of polite society they think about black and other buys of color in violent disorder don't think about what precipitated these events are indeed the ways in which white people have been a part of these things that have been called race riots through time so i really wanted to look at this and the racial violence do that lands because i really think this young and they were going to be because understand how we were going to stop racial violence if it's possible for liam we have the cover of your book and i saw onscreen long ago but it's up there again if it's a camera could just hone in a little bit

i guess maybe not thats the detroit riots riot of what year nineteen forty three let's begin with the left on the cover talk a little bit about the reissue of nineteen forty three in detroit michigan chair was selected that particular image because it's one of the few images that we can actually access that typically will show white involvement and such a thing as race ride in a way that the ordinary you might be able to understand and you can see as you'd look at it there so there's an after americans fleeing a white mom across in front of the bus the downtown in public in broad daylight absolutely and nothing was really done to stop the crowd this is a riot that like most that completely out of hand and the press was deeply engaged in this is you know interestingly enough ballots one inmates at least they were misdemeanor violations put upon white citizens were involved in the riot that black citizens received the bulk of the citations in regard to that but detroit has been that particular center for racial

violence as has los angeles has as many places in the united states and so one of the same time that image because it was really one that was a visible proof that it we have an example of these white bodies and violent disorder what exactly does that mean and how does it shift our understanding what takes place when racial violence breaks out there's a point in the book where a new site ralph ellison's invisible man you say the invisible man discovers the white race riot and then them as your selections of on a lot of people that you rely on to define this phenomenon allison john hope franklin and others but ellison i thought was particularly can allen weiner sure that message

well invisible man is one of my favorite books and i am a lover of literature phd in english soap course i wanted to look at the ways in which literature particular can tell a story that can always be told in the press or even on the names it has a way of bringing in all the societal all the historical all the personal elements that go into making certain event any particular the invisible man has such a provocative book and that we have a black character who is insisting on the fact that his black invisible bodies really invisible nobody ever really sees him and part of what he has to go to in this process of becoming in an invisible is to understand the ways in which he is seeing by white people who are involved in him and this character the invisible man is a part of a larger group a multi racial group that supposedly aimed at resolving america's racial crises but woody indeed finds is that he's been a part and parcel to a riot

that seemingly this family routes but which was in fact planned and carried out very specifically by these very people who suggested that they could do something to resolve a racial situation lewis you about the juxtaposition of love the white rice immunization white riots in south africa he told me that this was really a thesis of yours so when you approach the subject i'm fascinated by what led you into discussion of this on the subject of what was it and an n n n n n how did you initially approached the idea the parallels between raw essence of never been robbed this was a very long journey for me i began my career in terms of my dissertation project trying to find something that would be worthwhile in terms of the time that i'd have to stay

with it and also something that really do something to a perhaps suggest that world's view of how race works in the united states in particular i remember don't mean even says is it my wife we're race sort of intervene and connected with his idea of violence when i was in high school and in the nineteen seventies and dating myself out we had black he's going to act in the seventies we had black history week and i vividly remember trying to decorate the one building we were allowed to to the to decorate for black history weak and having our things torn down repeatedly and so there was a moment at which they were high tensions in our high school and it was reported as a race riot this was my experience as a as a high schooler i happened to graduate high school in nineteen seventy six our bicentennial year if you recall there was a good deal of publicity around the ways in which this generation was going to really change the world but in

june of seventy six as i was graduating in thinking about what my life was going to be like beyond high school across the war's in south africa i see this report were students my age and younger were being shot down in the streets simply for because i didn't want to be pigeonholed into this idea of servitude for the rest of their lives and so it's an idea that percolating in my mind a good deal because the us is often use south africa as an excuse for our own race two worlds is this way you're in and we could probably do better but at least we're not as bad as things are in south africa support what i set out to do in this endeavor was to have and looked see in terms of the ways in which the us policies on race and racial practice actually are quite similar to those that took place in south africa in many many ways in fact part of what i discovered was as they were trying to put into place this nineteen forty eight when apartheid became law would begin was to look too the segregated us to see what they could do to near the

situation and make it work in their favor so in many ways we have used each other as countries and societies to sort of figure out are cold will take on race that in the united states we've always use south africa as an excuse that you focus on the long run and in a number of places in both confusion focus on stephen biko as stephen biko is a figure virtually unknown to most people in america if you mentioned emmett till many people will remember that emmett till was a fourteen year old boy and moves <unk> and murdered by two white men in the city who were outraged the clothes they sought this fourteen year old boy who insulted my mother walked in my been a whistle or smile didn't even know what it was and i remember that that case because it came time to win when

i met killed martyrs after being acquitted by a white jury anonymous city they then were paid money by nationalizing in effect to confess to admit what they've done and and there was some small mom or maybe two thousand dollars and then there was a great national uproar the country's conscience and we were pretty i mentioned until because steven biko space in some ways i think it was among the kings of africa where mandela was his colleague and his friend but but in iowa remember when the british finally decided that we'll look at the pros murder in prison and our country was not great but most of europe was really

horrified i've been fascinated by the murder of state in the state and they go inside prison and so i think the analogies are there i mean i have drawn one that that maybe is not as poisonous as your comparison of the parallels between the riots but but but but it all come from rage talk a little bit because you write about a talk about what what is it that is the spark that stimulates the rage that resolves into fights running against a let me go back a little bit before it that you're in think about your comparison and emmett till as a fourteen year old the first south african he was killed in the uprising in salerno he has a thirteen year old cynthia tucker was a photograph that exley who was picked up by the ap wire service and the so the world exactly what was going on in select indeed you might also look at steven biko in terms of his black

consciousness mindset in many ways quite similar to malcolm x's literature indeed trying to figure out how to as a community you can learn to love yourself learn to support yourself to contradict all these negative images that grab a society when race is the east is the situation what i tried to do was to look at what precipitated these ride events and i looked at all range of things beginning in at ninety eight in wilmington north carolina and ending up basically at the election riots a pre election riots in nineteen ninety four in south africa and i found a set of similar circumstances and each of them we had a very racially stratified society in each of these events we had a particular point at which this hierarchy was being challenged in at ninety eight in limiting for instance there was a for the first time and nine democratic ticket in office losing party had won and for the first time we had black public the fishes officials in that area

and that wasn't just a pouring out of why this was completely wrong in america is not the black man as a negro state we have to fight this in south africa indeed it was that desire to hold onto a part time practice when it had obviously outlived its usefulness he began with this crisis on top of this racially stratified society and what happens in what i call in the book is white racial as usual asian now you leysen as a harbor to say to those ages eighteen times that of your own but also it's i wanted to use a term that have been applied to you african cultures to critique what was going on in this western mindset you later is what happens in a moment of extreme outpouring of emotion you often hear it from women at the wailing wall you often hear in the midst of a storm out what try to do it very loudly the day but it's a repeating call that stimulation what happens in white racial

isolation is that the press becomes involved in increasing this feeling of loss that we have to maintain the status quo this uncertainty this can happen if racism paramount and handled in the same way that it is at this particular moment and so people are in a flurry of a few really to maintain this oftentimes you'll find that it's usually the most economically decent haram in terms of the white involvement in these riots who are embracing their sense of whiteness by showing that they can brutalize his other people that they can be white enough to overcome this situation for those were you just turning inward talking with sheila smith record about her new book when white riot and the title of a book is one that the their strike people as often with a race

riot but we don't think of white riot down but if you analyze riots in this country in south africa it is not unusual that it is that white race that boils over over some triggering incident are my guess is that at times it may just be a small ring fear and dissatisfaction because of economic conditions are economic downturns although if you look at the situation south ansel there from thirty at the least challenge would create the trigger mechanism right that closed which documented as as a riot now you quote john hope franklin says so using a lynching and wyeth not as

synonymous but but close talk about his view of that because it may be for all the years my life i've known about this phenomenon of this phenomena and lynching again if you look at the crowds of people around of vulgar vicious photographs even children younger women being lazy ants and here he's got even women and children in those crowds you know bad that lynching i had a very close relationship sort of sort of ryan that you see on the front cover your book amidst it's a different it's a different city in a different setting but the same root causes and for the same purposes as i end the same way to drive professor franklin deals with the ways in which the lynching and indeed later racial violence we used to maintain the racial status quo and indeed if you look at the critical even to summarize and i

often talk about lynching in regard to that is love of public events and there may have to be ways in which it can coalesce as i get whiteness at the same time that you can reinforce this idea of white privilege in my path we need these lynchings took place they were played ivins children were there food was served it was not a secret kind of thing that we see in hollywood that semi happens allison these were things that a precipitous events and that were intended to do precisely and to maintain the status quo and i also look at the ways in which bill clinton's initiative of race and the truth in reconciliation khamenei commission in south africa but publicly admit that violence and racial violence has been used to maintain on a specific ways in which the culture he was dominating i'm interested i'm interested in your analysis of the effectiveness of bishop tutu reconciliation initiative mean you know we came

to a point where a prime minister who had gone so far to initiate change that that brought mandela to the president's it absolutely refused to cooperate with the reconciliation commission or what's your what's your take on how effective it was whether we're a better off after all those confessions after after all that all that pain for my heart knowing that the big o case and the exposure of what had happened in that case served for a conscience your conscience is prick the conscience as a national society i thought that was one effect but i never i never identify the word reconciliation was that result i mean i saw people were angered infuriated the distressed can

be under the evil of the system that murdered biko in jail while never identify the word reconciliation is reconciliation was no one there oh it's difficult to decide because part of what was going on was effective these people often didn't know exactly what happened to their loved ones can you imagine losing your child or your husband or your mother or someone very close to you and never knowing how they came to be in that situation and supportive of i believe there to be reconciliation process was this idea confession was not only good for the soul but allowing these families to understand what took place and allowing them to grieve because part of the grieving process is at least come to terms of understanding precisely what took place and i'm in the negative view of that now though you get the information on the table there's a way in which is very difficult to move beyond if there's no way that people pay for these kinds of there is an end and i was a revenge drives people along a less

than revenge of the reality and if you've lost love when you think that the person who was responsible for that debt should play to have some sort of public meetings and out of that about the rise in soda solos for example the prison guards who came forward and to fessenden decided this a brute love this person and murdered in effect i murdered that person and he's following good for the beautiful but none to me on its ally president satish of saying you're forgiven my son but if i've lost someone i'm not sure that that so it's going to be enough but part of it was the public airing a grievance and indeed if you look at the way in which in its heels mother made that a very public spectacle not only his funeral but in her subsequent conversations about the loss of her son know whenever we pay for their crimes but getting information now is a part that perhaps if you can at least

infiltrate the consciousness of one person who would embrace white supremacy in a different way than perhaps sell the apartment i always thought of those that kills ordeal his death the trial the exposure of the corruption was just as i'd always thought that that helps set the scene for us so moist movement stability to prick the conscience of the country and over a well if you knew this could happen is if you knew that this was the model of silent justice and in so many cases it was you know do you remembered that we you saw dogs attacking schoolchildren when you saw fire hoses turning black ministers upside down crushing

him in the sahel and the way in which little ruby bridges had to go through that got lit of obsession haiti exactly exactly when you make it public in any make it and nationally internationally they are there some part of that truth that desperate the continents and so that's in part what is important about these events that you remember them in such a way that you can get at the truth that perhaps was covered up a bit in the beginning if you had to if you go to a draw and in the years since become so far from where we were in a sense there is yet so far ago i mean when you realize that there are is with the last few years kc just the texans a man is literally dragged to death behind the truck three people are convicted to get the death penalty another life imprisonment

as a result of that i mean the outcome has quite different learned was an occasion of them until there's been a critical social revolution then that regard an elite level of an illegal abolition the problem with that doesn't people still have this mindset that you can still have that mindset of i love white supremacy even in this day and time it makes us wonder how indeed this kind of legacy continues if you if you if you take that case bunch recently i i had on the program on the station produces of a television documentary on that event in jasper texas one producer was not an american hero was quite they were friends they went in you write n n n and their story is a physical telling drama of how a city trying to come together but still if you got inside each community

in new tension the stress the dislike remained end and the convictions may have helped some body racism still just as alive as sick as in some ways they never walk but you write about them that reminds me that you write about media depictions of a phenomenon how it characters in film and then in the media talk a little bit about malcolm x once said that the american media can make the american people and had it will he said this many years before an inbound communications theory the power the press was critiqued in that particular way and the we can see the legacy of some of the power the press right now in preparation for empire and the connections between el time and other kinds of people in this axis of evil if you present this information about a historical

later without a way to see the ways in which these things develop people just absorb this information and it becomes a part of their knowledge base without him ever having to think critically about the information they're receiving and so part of what i wanted to do in this book was to look at me representations of racial violence beginning back in at ninety eight and coming up to two thousand important what i saw was the same thing takes place in at ninety eight in wilmington it was a print media and that was and in terms of this white racial isolation they were the center of it and it was manipulated the facts were manipulated so that they could develop this sense of impending crisis that precipitated the violence in the two thousand image that i looked at in terms of south africa i dealt with a preview pre election violence in one of their two stands where the prime minister was not going to allow the people to be a part of that all race elections he wanted to remain in power a black man to his rescue came the afrikaner

brotherhood all white mean you can drive a mercedes an armed to the teeth become the famous by president who wanted to do maintain the south african status quo what happens in our appointed to see them rather than focusing on this white violence is a pain and immediately there's a report about it and are porous we just too in other news there's black on black violence in another part of south africa without interrogating her critiquing the sinister white violence at all so i think it's critical that we look at the role the press plays an impact its own short sightedness in maintaining the racial situation ah well for those of you we've been talking to sheila smith mccoy about hurting both when whites riot thank you so much for coming thank all of you for joining us to walk in the word on words on johnson in color of freedom