s-t-t at juno.com wrote:
>
>
> So, in his eyes, the riots were *not* an antecedent to organized action,
> but a consequence of it's absence. The conditions were there, but the
> effective ability wasn't.
>
I was speaking _only_ of the '60s, Watts through Detroit, Newark, Decatur (Illiois), which as Doug says occurred in a specific political context. (And incidentally, the riots _did_ occur mostly in areas in which there had been less political organizing. After the death of Martin Luther King, the areas in Atlanta where they did _not_ riot was where SNCC had done local work; ditto for several cities in the areas in which the Panthers had been active. But though the riots were surely at a "lower" level of consciousness than SNCC or the Panthers, nevertheless they "spoke" in an atmosphere created by the whole black liberation struggle in _all_ its modes. And they did, really, enhance morale for many in the black communities.
Of the reverberations or "meaning" of South Central I have no real knowledge so I was not speaking of that.
There is _no_ political act that has an inherent meaning of its own. In some contexts yelling loudly can be the act of a provocateur. In other contexts burning a convention hall would be a distraction from more important violence.
Carrol