Tulsa was a crime, and certainly worth remembering. Yet the U.S. has had devastating urban riots on a somewhat regular basis since the 1960s—and many more devastating than Tulsa in terms of financial cost. According to the criminologist Barry Latzer, "from 1964 to 1972, a staggering total of 752 riots occurred, resulting in 228 deaths, 12,741 injuries, 69,099 arrests, and 15,835 incidents of arson." The 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles killed 63 people—higher than the number of confirmed killed in Tulsa. Most recently, at least 19 people died in two weeks of rioting last summer in response to the death of
George Floyd.
These deaths weren't the result of racism. But aren't they worthy of mention? Aren't they worth incorporating in the story we tell about threats to Black life and Black property, if for no other reason than so we can better stop them?
It is an unfortunate fact about the American press that it is selective in which modern crimes it focuses on. Police shootings of Blacks and hate crimes against minorities committed by whites—a tiny portion of the violence that occurs in this country—get the most attention. Victims of everyday crimes, the background noise of our society and culture, are largely ignored, given that the victims and perpetrators of the majority of crimes committed are of the same race.
And while it's nice to see the media using the Tulsa massacre to finally acknowledge what researchers have long known—that riots can have devastating, long-term consequences for a community—the economic damages of Tulsa do not compare to more recent riots. The riot of 100 years ago caused the modern equivalent of $200 million in damage, compared to $1.4 billion in the Rodney King riots and as much as $2 billion last summer.
Why are we to believe that the economic destruction from a century ago has more relevance to the plight of Black Americans today than much more extensive damage in the recent past? Even if we concede the moral damage of the racism fueling the massacre, surely anyone invested in the economic health of our most unfortunate communities should broaden their lens.
Perhaps we should set aside a day to remember all victims of rioting, as the consequences can indeed be devastating both for the families of those killed or injured and the larger affected community.
But that is not what identity politics does; it demands we focus on white supremacy as the cause of problems currently faced by the Black community, rather than policy decisions and cultural changes rooted in the 1960s—not coincidently, when large scale urban rioting started to become more common.
But it's not just that the press and liberal commentariat ignore today's riots and the devastating impact they've had on the Black community. What's most disturbing is attempts to justify, or even glorify, recent rioting. Much of academia now refers to the Rodney King riots as an "uprising," as if it was an honorable struggle for freedom rather than a criminal rampage. And NPR famously did an interview last summer with an author who wrote a book called "In Defense of Looting." While most among the political and media establishment do not go nearly that far, the outsized focus on Tulsa shows that violence that supports the preferred narrative will always be given the most attention. A political agenda, not concern for victims, is what motivates the commemoration of Tulsa.