X-NUPop-Charset: English Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 09:37:03 -0600 (CST) From: "Alan Spector" Sender: spector@calumet.purdue.edu Reply-To: spector@calumet.purdue.edu To: revs@csf.colorado.edu Subject: Fw: Black Church Bombings >From Alan Spector, REVS editor: I forward to REVS several postings that have appeared on other e-mail networks. I have erased the names of the authors because I am posting them as pieces of information/discourse, rather than as official opinion pieces by the authors. ------------------------------ The los Angeles Times (Opinion Section, p. 1 June 16, 1996) had a very good piece placing Black church bombings in a historical context. What I found insightful was the author's (whose name eludes me now) come to the conclusion that there is no conspiracy, he believes, behind all these brunings. In fact, the reality is even more frightening, that race relations are in such a trrrible state that many people are resorting to these burnings to express their hate. These burnings, in a culture that only see racism in terms of the polarities of Black/white, also need to be understood in the context of anti-immigrant xenophobia expressed in beatings of "latino looking individuals" (whatever a Latino is supposed to look like), vigilante posses persecuting "suspected" undocumented immigrants, and at least in California the kiilling and beating of Latinos, Asians recently by racist skinheads/neo-nazi groups. One last point, Tyrone Power, author of Eyes for the Soul, an expose off his years in the Federal Burau of Investigation, was inteviewed in Pacifica today. He points at the "damage control" that the Clinton Administration is engaged in to avoid dealing with these events for what they are: domestic terrorism. While must of us abhor the new powers invested in the state by the new terrorism law, is quite ironic that these laws have yet to be invoked when the victims are people of color. Mr. Power believes that in addition to racism the specter of "domestic terrorism" is not used because of the Atlanta Olimpic games. Could we imagine the impact on attendace if these rash of burnings in the South were focused by the International media on the eve of the Olimpics in a state in the South?