Talk:1967 Detroit riot/Archive 1

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Regarding the caption on the cover. Being that the riot and looting was done almost entirely by blacks, Time Magazine WAS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT in depicting the blacks as looters. Your little PC comment about "blacks only being represented as looters" begs the question: What else would you have liked Time to show.

The folks who burned down THEIR OWN NEIGHBORHOODS (all of whom were morons on the left side of the bell curve) were largely responsible for Detroit's demise. While it is true that you can also blame the Big Three (for encouraging sprawl and getting rid of the trollies), most of the blame rests on the shoulders of the imbeciles who burned down the city, voted in Coleman Young, and whined about racism while collecting their welfare check from Uncle Sugar. (John in NYC)

As a life long detroiter who has studied this topic at length in college, i find your comments unenlightened, john in nyc... obviously the white persons angle (i am white, btw) was that african americans were solely "looting" ... but imagine how much detroit had decayed by 1967... additionally there was rampant racism not only in the police force but in the "free" housing market. the detroit police force was 90% white, while the city was majority black... blacks were not permitted, through fha loan blocks, and governmental red tape, to move to the suburbs in great numbers... this left a concentrated group of lower class unemployed black poor in the city center... i can explain in more depth if you require, but to me the riots were obviously a product of bureaucratic WHITE racism...

Also to the article's author, i don't know if I totally agree with this statement: "Detroit has never fully recovered from the after-effects of the riot and the negative media coverage that was conveyed internationally." it is important to note that detroit's decline was rooted in the post-world war two era, and REALLY began in ernest in the late 1950s... by the riots of '67, detroit was already riding a downward spiral... although i agree with you that the MEDIA'S interpretation of the events was VERY damaging... media is still damaging to detroit... see the detroit news article "midtown: a risk worth taking" what tripe... midtown is seeing such wonderful things, and the news pisses on it...

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The POV of this article makes it fairly unfit to be a Wikipedia article. I don't even know where to start to make it NPOV without just deleting it altogether or boiling it down to about two lines. RickK 00:16, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

The best thing might be to put a Wikipedia:NPOV dispute warning header at the top. Also, you should spell out what it is you're objecting to. I think I have a fair idea, but it helps to be as explicit as possible when resolving these things. -- Cyan 00:33, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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Rick, as the author of the article I'll answer what I can. I'll qualify this by saying, I'm from Detroit, I am white (so this wasn't written by someone being kept down by the man), and I will admit freely that this is an emotional issue to those of us who love Detroit. vudu 03:07, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Well, I'll try. Let's see. The loaded language, such as "all hell broke loose", "tragedy", "predominately white". Where is the opposing view?:

"all hell broke loose" - eye witness account

"tragedy" - a lot of innocent people died, same as 9/11, hence, tragety

"predominately white" - the year was 1967, Detroit was about 2/3 black and 1/3 white, the police force was nearly 90% white.

1. an illegal after-hours bar (known as a blind pig). The police were doing their job, then weren't they?

obviously, it is mentioned that the bar was illegal (someone else's edit, I believe... my mistake, blind pig implies illegal after hours bar to me, but probably should have been explained better originally

1. had a reputation for harrassment and brutality. Can we get examples of this?

what sort of examples would you like? The police forces in most major American cities had bad reputations when dealing with the black population and it was a contributing factor to a number of riots, again 1967

1. The officers had expected to find a handful of people in the bar. Were we reading their minds, or has someone stated this?

only one unit showed up initially, if they had been expecting the numbers that were present, they would have had the paddy wagon and an additional half dozen units with them.

1. celebrating the return of two local veterans from the war in Vietnam. What makes this relevant?

it explains the large number of people present at the blind pig

1. After the last police car left, a group of angry men who had observed the incident began breaking the windows of the adjacent clothing store Just peace-loving protestors, were they?

never said that, nor was it implied

1. their presence fueled more violence. Really? But the previous paragraph said, violence and looting exploded. What was the government supposed to do?

violence swelled again after the National Guard showed up, it's typical.

Further, I never justified the actions of the rioters, I never said what they did was right, nor have I attempted to condone their behavior.

By the way, wasn't the mayor at the time African-American? RickK 00:44, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Nope. Coleman Young didn't come to power until 1974, nice try.

Just as an aside Rick, I've watched you closely for quite some time and have taken exception to a number of things you have said on the mailing lists. While I appreciate your zeal, you could tone down your self righteousness and ask people things nicely instead of being so confrontational. BTW: I find it interesting that you come after this article within hours of the time I mention factual mistakes you made Ginger Lynn/Gina Lynn. vudu 03:07, 14 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I have no idea what you're talking about. I have no recollection of even having made edits concerning Ginger Lynn or Gina Lynn, and I certainly didn't redirect one to the other. I had not even read your comments on my talk page until tonight, the day after I made the comments on the 12th Street Riot page. I don't care what your feelings for me are, one way or the other, but don't try to imply that I'm out for revenge against you because of some idea that I disagreed with you on some article that I never even touched. Look at the history of Gina Lynn and you'll see that I never touched that page. And all I did on the Ginger Lynn page was to try to make some sense out of what someone had bulked together into one page with no rhyme or reason. It was simply an editorial edit, not a content edit -- I have no idea who Ginger Lynn OR Gina Lynn is, nor do I particularly care. Nor do I particularly care about you, despite your seeming trumped-up opinion of yourself. Having said that, in order not to make you think that I'm attacking you by attacking the 12th Street Riot page, I will back off from editing it, but I will put it on the Wikipedia:Pages needing attention page, so someone else can have a go at it. Wouldn't want to buff up your ego any. BTW, until all of this came up, I don't recall having even heard of you. RickK 04:11, 15 Oct 2003 (UTC)

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The thing about blacks in Newark being much worse off is useless and based on only one statistic, and should be removed.

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The city of Detroit has never fully recovered from this tragedy.

We have some fine sentences following this sentence that specify exactly what this sentence means: the riot contributed to a perception of the city as dangerous. So we don't really need this vague, metaphorical sentence too. (What does it mean to say Detroit "fully recoverd"? According to who? How do you decide it was the riot itself that caused lasting problems, and not vice-versa?) DanKeshet

It would be preferable to say Many believe that the city has never fully recovered... That is NPOV while still getting the point across. (Incidentally, I personally believe that the riot's role in Detroit's decline has been greatly exaggerated - there were riots all over the country from 1965-68, and other cities that had them managed to bounce back - but nevertheless, it's regularly used as a scapegoat for the city's problems by locals.) Funnyhat 22:06, 20 Apr 2005 (UTC)

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I don't really see the problem in this article. Maybe I came too late, and it was reedited greatly, but... :-\ ugen64 16:54, Nov 30, 2003 (UTC)

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The current version of this article looks fine to me, although I do agree that the article as originally written had NPOV problems. Is NPOV still in dispute, or is it time to remove the notice? Thalia/Karen 03:32, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

Speaking as the creator of the article (yes, there was unintentional POV, hometown and all, you know) I'd say so, but I'm biased. I won't remove the notice myself in general principle, but I don't see the person who put this article in dispute having any real interest in removing it himself (you'll note this was first suggested on 30 Nov. 2003 by ugen64). Someone needs to step up. I've had an exchange with RickK (off 'pedia) about this article as well as what I see as a pattern of hit-n-run bully tactics. That being said, I've pretty much resigned myself to leaving this be. Like I said, someone else needs to step up. vudu 17:39, 18 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Right. Well, I don't have any particular stake in the question either way. You might say I have a neutral point of view. ;-) I've mentioned that I think the current version is okay everywhere I can think to do so. If no one else says they disagree in a couple of days, I'll remove the notice and take it off the list of articles that need work. Thalia/Karen 21:12, Dec 18, 2003 (UTC)

As I said I would a couple of days ago, I've just removed the NPOV dispute notice and taken this article off the list of articles needing attention. Thalia/Karen 02:17, Dec 21, 2003 (UTC)