THE ROBERT W. WHITAKER ARCHIVE

A MAN WITH A MEMORY LOOKS AT THE CINCINNATI RACE RIOTS | 2001-04-21

As the only man with a memory, I need to mention something about the Cincinnati race riots.

I remember the 1960s race riots, and I remember one thing about those riots that no one mentioned in the media then and that no one talks about now.

One of the things that happened in the recent Los Angeles riots and the Cincinnati uprisings was that the mob pulled whites out of their cars and beat them. During the 60s riots, that happened in the Watts Riots in Los Angeles and in many other Northern riots as well.

But in the 1960s they did not pull one single white person out of their cars south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

The liberals would love to say that that was because evil, bigoted Southerners would have chased down and prosecuted the attackers more vigorously down South. So the poor, persecuted Southern blacks didn't dare drag whites out.

But some of those Northern rioters wore masks. Nobody grabbed a person out of his car in a Southern riot even with a mask on. It isn't the fear of being identified that prevents it.

No respectable conservative would dare think of, much less mention, the real reason why drivers down here, white or black, are so often unmolested.

But you and I know why no sane person would drag a person out of a car in the middle of a Southern riot: he is likely to get his head blown off.

A lot of us "carry heat" down here, and if there is a dangerous situation, even more of us will put the answer to it in our glove compartments.

You will only read it here: if a few Northerners had had guns in their cars, no one would have been dragged out and beaten in Northern riots, then or now.