Race Baiting in the 1980s

Let's face it: Racism in the 80s reached disgusting levels. All you have to do is watch Sixteen Candles, if you can stomach it, to see how blatant racism was back then.

So, political opportunists, or just misguided and unconscious people, wasted no time back then to create political hay and fear over the issue of race.

This article examines four incidents in which race baiting was exemplified in the 1980s.

Willie Horton Campaign Ad Against Michael Dukakis

George HW Bush was losing against Dukakis back in 1988 until some of his supporters put out an ad that implied that Michael was soft on crime. They used the image of a murderer rapist that was given a weekend furlough in which he wreaked horror on a couple, killing one partner and raping the other; Dukakis was said to have supported weekend furloughs for dangerous criminals.

Willie Horton, the dangerous criminal used in these ads, happened to be black; which I think was no mistake. Anyone fearing black crime was not going to like Dukakis much after those ads and the campaign runners knew it.

As you might imagine, Dukakis never lived it down. But I don't think Bush did either.

Central Park Jogger

Back in the late 80s, a woman jogging in Central Park was savagely beaten and raped. The incident created a firestorm and incited much racial tension. The story went that a group of young blacks and Hispanics ganged up on the victim and left her for dead.

The young men were imprisoned for many years until the real perpetrator of the crime came forward to admit to it, saying he acted alone; and, turns out, DNA evidence supported his claim. The men, after having spent more than ten years in prison, were released. Recently they were awarded a settlement.

Problem is, the case did nothing but reinforce images of minority youth being animalistic criminals constantly laying in wait for their next victims. Seems it's taken NYC many years to overcome and heal the wounds left by this tragic case.

Old school racism from 1899, published in Harper's Weekly. The illustration was meant to show the superiority of the Anglo to blacks and the Spanish and Irish.

Tawana Brawley Hoax

The story went, that she, a teenage black girl, had been kidnapped, raped and tortured by a group of white cops and a lawyer. She then, the story went, was covered in feces and put in a bag and dumped in the street.

The case caught a lot of media attention and was impetus for Reverend Al Sharpton to catapult his activist endeavors.

But it turns out the story was totally untrue.

More racism from back in the day, 1866. Lots of fear and loathing

Bernhard Goetz

Back in the 80s, Bernard Goetz shot a group of black youth in New York City that were trying to mug him. Fact is, Goetz was more than a little tired of being physically attacked on the street and he took the law in to his own hands; well, it's just a matter of self-preservation.

Of course, the public and media don't necessarily see it that way, and the Goetz case is another example of a racially inflammatory incident in the public's eye.

The 90s turned out to be a much more kind decade, with an easier attitude in which people were getting along generally and race didn't matter anymore and people were otherwise more conscientious and cognizant of any kind of racial insensitivity. And, of course, we now live in an era in which we've learned a lot of lessons about this issue and people are hip to the tactics of race baiting. Let's hope we make no backward swing to the era of the 80s with its blatant disregard and racial tensions.

Our crumbling infrastructure...

"Our crumbling infrastructure" is a real thing. All you have to do is look around to see it. I think when the roads completely deteriorate we'll finally start having people admit that it's okay for the government to help people out and, I don't know, actually maintain the roads for us. Really shows you what happens when a small group from Wall St and huge corporations control our government. The take-over started occurring in the 70s with incremental deregulation over time, plus various trade deals that favored business and screwed us, and I think Citizens United sealed the deal; now elections are just bought and it's become a circus. Pretty pathetic, I know at this point America has become the laughing stock of the world. Sad and hilarious. But it's not hard to see why it's happened.

What is America

America is a country that hasn't been able to handle its own philosophy. That old ideal of the 50s family, kind of hokey but good, though with its own major problems no doubt, is that idea of what people people think of as the Good America.

The American philosophy is that of diversity, of everyone coming here, yet no one has been able to handle that environment very well. While it is good, a worthwhile approach for sure, it brings conflict and confusion.

You have on the one hand - possibly in a very innocent way - people who believe that old America is ideal; unfortunately, this way of thinking involves believing some certain group is normal while those deviating from it are aberrations; on the other hand, you have the many diverse groups who - rightly so - take offense at the old school perspective that the ideal is this old standard American from a less diverse era: The old standard is really cultural at heart, a way of thinking and an approach that is considered the preferred thinking and approach; and of course not everyone wants to share this approach and there is no real reason they should. Conflict arises, I think, when there is not a deep enough understanding of this scenario, what it is and how it plays out. Therefore you get an array of either knee jerk responses or misguided ideological responses that are purely political but lack depth of examination.

Clearly this problem will need resolution and will resolve itself either through understanding or through successive generations that are accustomed to a new America not based in old ideas and standards that assault those who do not belong in its narrow field of what is acceptable.