tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/selma-18475/articlesSelma – The Conversation2016-11-07T11:00:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/676882016-11-07T11:00:37Z2016-11-07T11:00:37ZViolence has long been a feature of American elections<p>The 2016 American presidential campaign has renewed concerns about the specter of violence in American electoral politics. The campaign has been marked by tense – <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2016/03/02/a_list_of_violent_incidents_at_donald_trump_rallies_and_events.html">and occasionally violent</a> – altercations between supporters and critics of Republican nominee Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Trump encouraged his supporters to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzYv5foyAS8">“knock the crap”</a> out of protesters, and even suggested he would <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2016/03/13/donald-trump-says-he-may-pay-legal-fees-of-accused-attacker/?_r=0">pay the legal fees</a> of followers who assaulted his critics.</p>
<p>By <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-wont-commit-to-accepting-election-results-if-he-loses/2016/10/19/9c9672e6-9609-11e6-bc79-af1cd3d2984b_story.html">refusing to commit</a> to accepting the results of the election, he has confirmed the <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/poll-41-percent-of-voters-say-the-election-could-be-stolen-from-trump-229871">doubts among his supporters</a> about the integrity of American elections. Thereby, he has increased the risk of <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2016/10/donald_trump_is_setting_a_time_bomb_for_racial_violence_on_election_day.html">possibly violent</a> resistance by hard-core Trumpists.</p>
<p>It would be comforting to conclude that the menace of violence surrounding the 2016 presidential election is unique. But my research on the history of voting rights in the United States suggests that this is far from the case. Indeed, the threat and execution of violence around elections has a long, sad history in American politics. </p>
<p>Somewhat like the 2016 election – which has revolved around issues of race and immigration – efforts by disadvantaged (and often nonwhite) citizens to secure greater political influence have been met with violent repression by those already enjoying power (usually more affluent whites) throughout American history.</p>
<h2>History of violence</h2>
<p>Violent conflict surrounding elections goes all the way back to the beginning of American history. The Founding Era – often portrayed as a period dominated by outstanding, level-headed statesmen who set the United States on a course toward inevitable greatness – was actually a chaotic period.</p>
<p>Political violence was <a href="http://thebaffler.com/ancestors/reflections-violence-united-states">a constant threat</a> in that period. And, occasionally, a reality. </p>
<p>In 1804, Aaron Burr, vice president and <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/ist/?next=/history/thomas-jefferson-aaron-burr-and-the-election-of-1800-131082359/">an aspirant for higher office</a>, killed Alexander Hamilton, George Washington’s former secretary of the treasury, in a duel. Doubting Burr’s judgment and patriotism, Hamilton had <a href="http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/hamilton/essays/understanding-burr-hamilton-duel">worked to deny</a> Burr the governorship of New York. Burr was <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300097559/affairs-honor">outraged over</a> <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300097559/affairs-honor">Hamilton’s efforts</a> to deny him the political success he craved. </p>
<p>The period between the 1820s and the onset of the Civil War was marked by a substantial increase in ethnic and religious diversity. This period was also notable for an increase in violent conflict surrounding politics and elections. </p>
<p>In a precursor of today’s politics, these clashes stemmed from <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-religion/article/the-know-nothing-party-three-theories-about-its-rise-and-demise/BD58CBD14E86886C4B5FF93DED133162">heightened anxieties</a> among native white Protestants about the consequences of Irish and German Catholic immigration for American identity and social harmony.</p>
<p>Of particular note was the rise of the virulently nativist, anti-Catholic “American Party” (better known as the <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/nativism-and-slavery-9780195089226?cc=us&lang=en&">“Know-Nothing” Party</a>) in the 1850s. For some Know-Nothings, violence against recent immigrants was an acceptable means to preserve the rights of native whites.</p>
<p>The Know-Nothings were hardly a fringe movement: By 1854, they <a href="https://www.minnpost.com/community-voices/2016/09/trump-throwback-know-nothing-party-1850s">had elected 52 of the then 234 members of Congress</a>, as well as the mayors of several major cities. The rise of the Know-Nothings triggered serious conflicts between native white Protestants and those who had recently immigrated. </p>
<p>In a particularly horrifying 1855 event known as <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-03-05/anti-immigrant-political-movement-sparked-election-day-riot-150-years-ago">“Bloody Monday,”</a> 22 people – mostly recent German and Irish immigrants – were killed, and many more were injured, in an Election Day riot in Louisville, Kentucky. </p>
<p>In a disturbing precedent given Trump’s request that his supporters monitor polls in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/us/politics/donald-trump-voting-election-rigging.html?_r=0">“certain locations,”</a> an immediate precursor of the riot was an <a href="http://www.pri.org/stories/2016-03-05/anti-immigrant-political-movement-sparked-election-day-riot-150-years-ago">effort by armed Know-Nothing supporters</a> to prevent eligible immigrant voters from casting ballots.</p>
<h2>The deadliest conflict</h2>
<p>It also bears remembering that the Civil War was sparked by the refusal by southern states to accept the results of the 1860 election. </p>
<p>That unusual contest, which had featured four major presidential candidates, had been won by Republican standard-bearer Abraham Lincoln despite the fact that he secured only <a href="http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showelection.php?year=1860">39.9 percent of the vote</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144589/original/image-20161104-27947-1qelvjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144589/original/image-20161104-27947-1qelvjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144589/original/image-20161104-27947-1qelvjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144589/original/image-20161104-27947-1qelvjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144589/original/image-20161104-27947-1qelvjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144589/original/image-20161104-27947-1qelvjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144589/original/image-20161104-27947-1qelvjj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=500&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Civil War graves at Arlington Cemetery, Virginia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/mjbos11/11875209906/in/photolist-j6nybo-gbpGUT-33LWf-9XCUp2-a3UgyH-pcvoq7-8XGLHr-935LTq-bC4ewf-mvmcQn-bQXTTB-bC4gpE-bQXWCp-bQXXg4-pYfNd-5QRThN-anprtX-cHfPj1-B4zjGC-qc1rVz-2aCVb5-eWMTUQ-6XABQ5-qnaswX-7HQLnB-6oTyqx-acsMTN-8Uk2rh-a3Ujnp-4mfGLf-79AS1d-eUQBHN-9qFFPz-9jvyXT-aEzYaE-9qJK4w-9dvxEu-9XCSMz-56LPEo-9BfU8Q-afBPaV-8bvBYG-935Mgw-9eqb5S-A3u5KW-9XFKoA-h8ttkm-eZV3B7-a3X8U5-dqGPWe">Mike Boswell</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although Lincoln <a href="http://www.asjournal.org/53-2009/abraham-lincolns-attitudes-on-slavery-and-race/">did not support</a> the immediate emancipation of African-American slaves, southern leaders believed he intended to destroy the southern slave system. They sought to exit the Union in order to prevent that from happening. </p>
<p>When Lincoln refused to accept southern secession, the result was the Civil War – still the <a href="http://prospect.org/article/american-war-dead-numbers">nation’s deadliest conflict</a> in terms of total casualties.</p>
<h2>Racialized election violence</h2>
<p>But violence directly linked to elections arguably reached a fever pitch in the decades following the North’s victory in the Civil War. The national Republican Party’s attempts to enfranchise African-Americans and strengthen Republican Party organizations in southern states were contested strenuously – and often violently – by southern whites. </p>
<p>In the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s, armed groups of newly enfranchised African-Americans and their white Republican supporters <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Two-Reconstructions-Struggle-Enfranchisement-Political/dp/0226845303/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477324613&sr=8-1&keywords=The+two+reconstructions">repeatedly squared off</a> against white supremacist paramilitary organizations in states throughout the South. </p>
<p>In one of the worst single episodes of violence – <a href="http://www.theroot.com/articles/history/2013/07/what_was_the_colfax_massacre/">the Colfax Massacre of 1873</a> – a group of white vigilantes killed somewhere between <a href="http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/1873-colfax-massacre-crippled-reconstruction-180958746/?no-ist">62 and 150 African-American men</a>. African-American Republicans had occupied the Grant Parish, Louisiana courthouse in order to preserve the results of the 1872 gubernatorial election, which had elevated a Republican to the governorship. Three whites were also slain in the battle, which had featured the use of trenches and cannon.</p>
<h2>A long history</h2>
<p>The threat – and repeated <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/what-we-do/civil-rights-memorial/civil-rights-martyrs">execution</a> – of violence remained important features of efforts by white supremacists to suppress African-American (and Latino) registration and voting all the way up until enactment of the <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/bending-toward-justice">Voting Rights Act of 1965</a>, which strengthened federal voting rights protections and authorized federal monitoring of election rules in states with records of racial discrimination in voting.</p>
<p>Indeed, the <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Protest_at_Selma.html?id=n6OL9LyhoG4C">immediate impetus</a> for enactment of the Voting Rights Act was widespread public outrage following the nationwide broadcast of images of the brutal police suppression of a peaceful voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ik9kL92A7ho?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Broadcast of images of suppression in Selma.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And the subsequent <a href="https://transatlantica.revues.org/7437">expansion of the Voting Rights Act</a> to protect the rights of non-English-speaking Americans was shaped in no small part by reports of the <a href="http://us.macmillan.com/giveustheballot/ariberman">violent intimidation</a> of prospective Latino voters, especially in southwestern states.</p>
<p>Just a few years after enactment of the Voting Rights Act, the 1968 Democratic National Convention was famously marred by the <a href="http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/B/bo5826735.html">violent suppression of anti-war demonstrators</a> by the Chicago police. Demonstrators explicitly portrayed American involvement in Vietnam as the <a href="http://www.kentuckypress.com/live/title_detail.php?titleid=3501#.WBDY_uErJAY">continuation</a> of American imperialism and suppression of nonwhite peoples. The clash represented another example of racialized violence surrounding elections.</p>
<p>As a general matter, elections in more recent decades have been characterized by greater civility. However, the long history of violence in American elections should caution citizens against undue optimism about the continuation of this recent favorable trend. </p>
<p>Trump’s incitement of violence and denigration of the integrity of American elections do, in fact, risk the resumption of ugly historic patterns.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67688/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jesse Rhodes has done contract work for Demos, a progressive think tank.</span></em></p>In America’s past, efforts by disadvantaged citizens to secure greater political influence have been met with violent repression.Jesse Rhodes, Associate Professor, Political Science, UMass AmherstLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/441272015-07-07T09:00:47Z2015-07-07T09:00:47ZWill the Charleston tragedy serve as an inflection point for race relations?<p>On June 17, in Charleston, South Carolina, it was once again proven that – to some, at least – black lives <em>don’t</em> matter. But this time it wasn’t under color of authority. This time, it was in a church, and at the hands of a person who’s clearly and unambiguously <a href="http://lastrhodesian.com/data/documents/rtf88.txt">racist.</a> </p>
<p>What’s happened in the wake of the tragedy is as shocking in scope as it is in its swiftness. President Obama used it as an opportunity to remind us of the racism that continues to plague the nation. Further, the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/take-down-the-confederate-flag-now/396290/%20http:/www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/take-down-the-confederate-flag-now/396290/">suspect’s affinity for the Confederate battle flag</a> led to Governor Nikki Haley’s call for its removal from the State Capitol and on <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-confederate-flag-south-carolina-20150706-story.html#page=1">Monday July 6</a> the South Carolina Senate voted 37 to 3 to do just that. People of all racial hues took to the streets to protest the killings and their basis in racism.</p>
<p>All of this has led <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/is-charleston-a-turning-point-for-america-on-race_b_7666608.html">some to believe</a> that what’s happening in South Carolina represents an inflection point when it comes to race: an opportunity to hit the “reset button” where racism is concerned in America. </p>
<p>Before we embrace this conclusion lock, stock and barrel, however, we need to take a closer look. </p>
<p>My experience writing on <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10354.html">race, social movements</a> and the <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9083.html">postwar South</a> suggests that we must look to the past for clues about the likelihood Charleston serving as a game changer. </p>
<h2>The role of both domestic and international opinion</h2>
<p>Whether we define racial progress in symbolic or substantive ways, history suggests that when whites use violence against blacks, it sometimes backfires, resulting in racial progress. </p>
<p>However, the conditions under which it happens are very specific. </p>
<p>Typically, there are at least two audiences – third parties, if you will – to which forces of change appeal: one domestic, the other international. </p>
<p>The sympathy of the domestic audience (generally non-Southern) has – for much of the past 60 years – resided with the progressive forces as they witnessed scenes in which peaceful black protesters, who simply wished to be treated in accordance with the law of the land, were brutalized by white southerners. Such scenes evoked moral revulsion and emotional shock.</p>
<p>The international audience was no less important.</p>
<p>In the context of the Cold War, during which the United States was engaged in a global ideological struggle with the Soviet Union, race and racism were crucial elements.</p>
<p>To the extent that both superpowers were in a competition for international influence, and the United States often advertised itself as a beacon for freedom and democracy, the continued oppression of 10% of its population rendered such a claim dubious at best. </p>
<p>Further, to the degree that much of the competition for strategic access and alliances, by the 1950s, took place among nations in which people of color were in the majority, Jim Crow – and African diplomats being <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/%7Epsource/PDF/Archive%20Articles/Spring2012/2012%20-%20Spring%20-%208%20-%20Murray%20Vachon,%20Nicholas.pdf">kicked out</a> of diners – didn’t play too well. </p>
<p>Of course, the Soviets took advantage of every act of violence and repression that took place in the South, denouncing such blatant hypocrisy to worldwide audiences. The violence associated with the Freedom Rides serves as one example of this. “Scenes of bloodshed in Montgomery are,” <a href="http://www.crmvet.org/riders/ns6107_world.pdf">said Radio Moscow</a>, “the worst examples of savagery…taking place in a country which has the boldness to declare that its way of life is…an example for other people.” </p>
<p>With these caveats in mind, let’s now consider the relationship between violence and racial progress, beginning with the civil rights legislation of 1957 and 1960. </p>
<h2>Violence and racial progress</h2>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=628&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87540/original/image-20150706-973-crobj2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=789&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Emmett Till was 14 when he was killed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:14EmmettTillBefore_(2534273093).jpg">ImageEditor</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was close on the heels of the<a href="http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-death-of-emmett-till"> murder of Emmett Till</a> (1955) and the attempt to integrate Central High School in <a>Little Rock, Arkansas</a> (1957) that civil rights bills were ratified with the intention of improving access to voting for black southerners. </p>
<p>Ultimately, however, both <a href="https://books.google.com/books/about/Black_Ballots.html?id=RqFOuIhndtYC">fell far short</a> of the stated goal. For instance, as of 1958, <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/1952827?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">only Tennessee</a> could boast that more than 40% of its black eligible voters were actually registered. </p>
<p>What happened? </p>
<p>In the aftermath of Emmett Till’s murder and, especially the white resistance at Little Rock, the Eisenhower Administration was moved to <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9560.html">push for civil rights legislation</a> as a means of blunting continuing <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/40023174?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">Soviet assaults</a> on the “American way of life.” As the president <a href="http://faculty.nwacc.edu/dvinzant/documents/LaytonIntlPressureandLRCrisis.pdf">himself said</a>, after ordering the deployment of federal troops to protect the new black students at Little Rock’s Central High School:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>[I]t would be difficult to exaggerate the harm being done to the prestige and influence, and indeed to the safety, of our nation and the world. Our enemies are gloating over this incident and using it everywhere to misrepresent our whole nation.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On the domestic side, however, the audience was limited to white southerners, because civil rights failed to register on the national agenda in the 1950s. And since southern reactionaries and their representatives weren’t too keen on displacing white supremacy, it is hardly surprising that the civil rights legislation of 1957 and 1960 failed to achieve its goals.</p>
<p>Now go forward four years. </p>
<p>The racial progress achieved with the legislation of 1964 and 1965 also took place in the shadow of the Cold War. </p>
<p>These were the days of the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the domestic audience also played an important role here – and this time it was nationwide. </p>
<p>The attacks on Freedom Riders and sit-in participants, the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in which four young girls were murdered, the spectacle during which fire hoses and dogs were turned loose on women and children protesters, and the “Bloody Sunday” march from Montgomery to Selma: this violence was extensively covered by the <a href="http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/march-7-1965-civil-rights-marchers-attacked-in-selma/comment-page-1/">national media</a> with shocking photographs like that of protester Amelia Boynton lying unconscious on the Edmond Pettus Bridge in Selma. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87541/original/image-20150706-1000-myavff.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=516&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alabama police attack on Bloody Sunday.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bloody_Sunday-Alabama_police_attack.jpeg">FBI</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Civil rights catapulted to the top of the American social and political agenda. </p>
<p>Many Americans were <a href="http://www.history.com/news/selmas-bloody-sunday-50-years-ago">outraged</a> at the behavior of many southern whites, law enforcement included. Ultimately, this outrage resulted in legislation that outlawed discrimination on the basis of race (among other factors), segregation, and expedited the implementation of the Brown decision. </p>
<p>Let us now return to the tragedy in Charleston.</p>
<h2>Who is watching Charleston?</h2>
<p>The domestic audience is certainly paying attention to South Carolina, as any glance at today’s media shows. What’s missing, however, is the international audience. This, in my judgment, is critical. </p>
<p>In the absence of an external existential threat to keep America honest, the impetus for racial progress lies squarely in the domestic sphere. </p>
<p>And this means that change is at the mercy of reactionary conservatives, people who, as my <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10354.html">research and that of Matt Barreto </a>into the Tea Party has shown, are fervent, disdainful of compromise and fearful of an existential threat to an American way of life in which mainly white Christians are the chosen group. </p>
<p>As I’ve argued <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/9083.html">elsewhere</a>, these sentiments can be traced to the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s, in which the return of the “New Negro” from World War I represented a threat to the existing racial order. </p>
<p>Dylann Roof is an outlier in terms of his actions, but his resentments are more widespread than may be generally acknowledged. Research I conducted in 2010 makes the case that the suspect isn’t the only one who harbors such sentiments; disdain for blacks is quite prevalent among contemporary <a href="http://depts.washington.edu/uwiser/mssrp_table.pdf">reactionaries.</a>.</p>
<p>When it was discovered that Roof has an affinity for the Confederate battle flag, it further confirmed what many blacks have come to believe: that the Confederate flag <a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/itsallpolitics/2015/06/22/416548613/the-complicated-political-history-of-the-confederate-flag">represents the continued oppression of blacks. </a> </p>
<p>This, then, is what needs to be kept in mind as we witness South Carolina’s lawmakers <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-confederate-flag-south-carolina-20150706-story.html#page=1">debate </a>Governor Haley’s call to remove the flag from the State Capitol. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/fWlh5CdQTRI?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">South Carolina’s Senate debates - now comes the House.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Yes, white-on-black violence, as it appears to prick the conscious of sympathetic whites, has resulted in adjustments in the past, and it may do so again. </p>
<p>However, we must remain mindful of the fact that more enduring progress has taken place when domestic sympathy was reinforced by the political pragmatism associated with the presence of an international pressure. </p>
<p>If we’re talking about a <em>global</em> military and ideological threat that has the capacity to threaten the existence of the United States or, at the very least, that claims to be interested in black lives, we’re fresh out of those at the moment: Islamist terrorism fails to meet either criteria. </p>
<p>What is more, as my own research confirms, the <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/research/papers/2014/06/04-tea-party-future-political-movement-parker">reactionary right</a> only continues to grow. Today’s Republican Party has been forced to adopt positions on, say, comprehensive immigration reform that are at odds with the moderate wing of the party. </p>
<p>The fact is that GOP moderates and reactionaries significantly <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/10354.html">part ways</a> on issues related to race. For instance, only 10% of reactionaries believed coverage of the George Zimmerman trial “raised important issues about race” warranting further discussion, compared to 40% of GOP moderates. In another example, when asked to evaluate the persistence of racial discrimination when it comes to voting in the wake of the 2013 Supreme Court <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/26/us/supreme-court-ruling.html?_r=0">rollback of voting rights</a> for blacks, 50% of GOP moderates believe this to be true versus 37% of GOP reactionaries. </p>
<p>I for one, remain to be convinced that the popular outrage we see now will result in real change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44127/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher Sebastian Parker does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>On July 6, the South Carolina Senate voted to remove the Confederate flag from the statehouse grounds. In the past white-on-black violence has led to real change - but under specific conditions.Christopher Sebastian Parker, Associate Professor, Political Science , University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.