Prometheus 6

I decided to wait on discussing Darkstar's question, because I'm still annoyed at McWhorter's polemic. This

Moreover, black rioters in Watts ruined black-owned businesses as lustily as white ones, even when stores had "Soul Brother" signs in the window. How was this a rebellion against racism?

...has been bothering me since Saturday evening.

I can't find a copy of The Kerner Report online, so I'm going to give you a chunk of The Occupation of Newark By Tom Hayden, as published by the New York Review of Book in 1967...when it happened...because you know I'm a stickler for context and accuracy.

The most obvious act of deliberate aggression was the police destruction of perhaps 100 Negro-owned stores Saturday and Sunday. One witness followed police down Bergen Street for fifteen blocks, watching them shoot into windows marked "Soul Brother." Another storeowner observed a systematic pattern. On his block three white-owned stores were looted Thursday night; no Negro stores were damaged. There were no other disturbances on his block until well after midnight Saturday when he received calls that troopers were shooting into the Negro-owned stores or were breaking windows with the butts of their guns.