of the 1960s had a very civilizing effect—it brought to the fore all
sorts of oppression and discrimination that had been suppressed.
The killing off of the native populations—which had been pretty
much ignored even in scholarship—was put on the agenda for the
first time. Environmental issues (which basically have to do with the
rights of future generations), respect for other cultures, the
feminist movement—these had all existed in some form earlier, but
they really took off in the 1970s and spread throughout the whole
country. The Central America solidarity movement wouldn’t have
existed in the form it did if not for what happened in the 1960s.
Concerns about oppression, authority and rights can sometimes
take the unhealthy forms that Gitlin is criticizing, but they needn’t,
and commonly didn’t.
Louis Farrakhan and the Million Man March seemed to be the
epitome of identity politics, since the participants were defined not
only by race but by gender. What did you think of that?
I think it’s a more complicated phenomenon. There were also
elements of self-help, rebuilding viable communities and lives, taking
responsibility for what you do. These are all good things.
But Farrakhan’s economic program is small-scale capitalism.
I didn’t see anything much in the way of an economic program,
but when you’re crushed, even small-scale capitalism can be a step
forward. It shouldn’t be the end of the road, obviously, but it can be
a step.
I think this movement is much more nuanced than some of the
commentary has assumed. It has opportunities to go a lot of
different ways, and how it comes out depends on what people do
with it.
There’s a reason why it’s men—look at what’s happened to black
men in the last twenty years. There’s been a virtual war against
minorities and the poor. It included plenty of scapegoating, like
Reagan’s anecdotes about black welfare mothers with Cadillacs, and
the Willie Horton concoctions. The fraudulent war on drugs, which
has little to do with drugs or crime, is another part of it.
Michael Tonry points out that those who crafted the programs