5/ As in 1967-68, urban discontent is a response to the delegitimation of key institutions, especially government.
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6/ As in the long hot summers, many police are themselves (unacknowledged) rioters.
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7/ Key differences: The crowds on big city streets today are far more racially diverse today than in 60s. Yes, there were white looters during the long hot summers, but this weekend’s crowds are far more mixed racially than could be imagined fifty years ago.
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8/ While protestors in both periods broke into stores and burned buildings. But most 60s looting and burning happened in African American neighborhoods. Mom and pop businesses, including black-owned stores in many cities, were targets, not national chains.
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9/ 60s rebels were much less likely to loot and burn central business districts, malls, and stores with a predominantly white clientele than today.
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10/ Examples: Philadelphia 1964: North Philly, Columbia Avenue and North Broad. Philadelphia 2020: Center City, Chestnut and Walnut Streets near Rittenhouse Square. Los Angeles 1965: Watts. Los Angeles 2020: Melrose, the Grove Mall, even Rodeo Drive.
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11/ Why the shift? We will need more research for a definitive answer, but I have a few hypotheses.
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12/ The boundaries of commercial segregation have weakened since the 60s, even if housing and school segregation have persisted, even hardened. We still have shopping while black incidents, but in the 60s malls and upscale shopping districts were nearly all white. Not today.
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13/ Neighborhood shopping districts have died off over the last 50 years, especially in places with large non-white populations. In most cities, they are not ecomomically or symbolically important targets for protests anymore.
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14/ More importantly, I suspect that today we are seeing a new, hybrid form of protest emerging in places like Minneapolis, NYC, Chicago, Philly, et al. It’s a fusion of anger against the police with opposition to global capitalism symbolized in multinational chain stores.
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There are echoes of Seattle 1999.
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