Apparently the late 1970's was New York’s Dark Ages, and the nadir of the era was when a blackout, caused by a lightening strike, hit New York on the 13th of July 1977 .... this was when chaos broke out on the streets.
.... when in the words of the time 'a marauding minority of poor blacks and Hispanics went on a rampage' and 'even the looters were being mugged.' Neighbourhoods from East Harlem to Bushwick were devastated.
In the ensuing 25 hours of darkness, arsonists had set more than 1,000 fires, and looters had ransacked 1,600 stores. This in stark contrast to the calm and peaceful response to a similar power outage event in 1965, which had affected far more people (25 million, spanning New York and seven other states, plus two Canadian provinces, compared with 9 million New Yorkers in 1977).
The conclusion drawn at the time was that the difference in response was “illuminating in a perverse way twelve years of change in the character of the city, and perhaps of the country” ...... little did we know it at the time, but the era of deliberate looting in ethnic minority areas of western countries had arrived.
 |
| The July 25, 1977, Cover of TIME 'Once More, With Looting'. |
.... when in the words of the time 'a marauding minority of poor blacks and Hispanics went on a rampage' and 'even the looters were being mugged.' Neighbourhoods from East Harlem to Bushwick were devastated.
In the ensuing 25 hours of darkness, arsonists had set more than 1,000 fires, and looters had ransacked 1,600 stores. This in stark contrast to the calm and peaceful response to a similar power outage event in 1965, which had affected far more people (25 million, spanning New York and seven other states, plus two Canadian provinces, compared with 9 million New Yorkers in 1977).
The conclusion drawn at the time was that the difference in response was “illuminating in a perverse way twelve years of change in the character of the city, and perhaps of the country” ...... little did we know it at the time, but the era of deliberate looting in ethnic minority areas of western countries had arrived.
The late 70's were the dark time for the Anglo-Saxon society's. It was when our cultures stopped being happy.
ReplyDeleteInteresting thought. Define 'cultures being happy'. Certainly I could agree that we lost our certainty in our destiny, but that was largely broken by internal forces (which are still operating now), rather than any real facts on the ground. I may have a good think about this .... I feel a post subject coming on. Thanks for the comment.
Delete