Scientific American - USA (2022-03)

March 2022, ScientificAmerican.com 69

Mark Peterson/Redux Pictures

gathered new strength, to the

extent that it threatens to set us

back to an era before the Civil

Rights Movement. Among the

great achievements of the CRM

were the 1964 Civil Rights Act and

the 1965 Voting Rights Act. What

is under attack now? It is precisely

the right to vote. Multiple states

now have laws restricting the

rights of what they call “minority

voters,” by which they mean

voters of color.

The recent Kyle Rittenhouse

case, in which a vigilante who

shot white people participating

in  largely Black protests was com-

pletely exonerated, is also alarming.

In the 1960s segregationists at -

tack ed white participants in the

CRM, de scribing them as race trai-

tors. Rittenhouse’s as sault has sim-

ilar overtones. Now white people

know that not only can conserva-

tives at tack them if they partici-

pate in protests, but the courts

may also side with the attackers.

Going forward, will they be willing

to risk their lives for a cause that

is not directly theirs? And how can

we ignore the insurrection of Jan-

uary 6, 2021, when a  predomi-

nantly white armed mob sought

to  annul the outcome of the presi-

dential election?

As I see it, a very serious clash

is taking place be tween progres-

sive and conservative forces,

be tween people who are fighting

for equality and people who are

fighting to maintain the status

quo. It is not clear who will tri-

umph. What is clear is that

America is at its highest level

of  polarization in modern history.

I  can imagine it must have looked

something like this prior to the

Civil War. We are at a cusp, and

we could fall on either side—into

the chasm of fascism or into a

more hopeful, democratic world.

Aldon Morris is Leon Forrest Professor

of Sociology and African American Studies

at Northwestern University and a previous

president of the American Sociological

Association. His landmark books include

The Origins of the Civil Rights Movement (1986)

and The Scholar Denied: W.E.B. Du Bois and

the Birth of Modern Sociology (2015).