The Political Economy and Urban Racial Tensions

Abstract

Recent books such as Andrew Hacker's Two Nations (1992) and Derrick Bell's Faces at the Bottom of the Well (1992) promote the view that racial antagonisms are so deep seated, so primordial that feelings of pessimism about whether America can overcome racist senti ments and actions are justified. The events surrounding the recent rebellion in Los Angeles, the worst race riot in the nation's history, aggravated these feelings. However, in this atmosphere of heightened racial awareness we forget or overlook the fact that racial antago nisms are products of situations?economic situations, political situations, and social situa tions. To understand the manifestation of racial antagonisms during certain periods, is to com prehend, from both analytic and policy perspec tives, the situations that increase and reduce them. As revealed in the title I have chosen for this paper (The Political Economy and Urban Racial Tensions), I shall try to demonstrate this important point by showing how the interrela tions of political policies and economic and social processes directly and indirectly affect racial tensions in urban America. In the tradition