Chimney Politics

Be sure to read Scott McConnell's post about the emerging "blacks on a rampage" theme (and Rod Dreher's related post here). He's right about the effect it had on the Dinkins mayoralty. I was a grad student at Columbia in the early 1990s, when the Central Park jogger attack was still fresh in the city's memory and racial tensions were high. Even among an intelligent, supposedly enlightened student body in a solidly liberal city, there was an unspoken fear of the avenging black hordes crossing 125th Street and marching up the hill into Morningside Heights and the Upper West Side. During the riots that followed the acquittals in the Rodney King case, I remember standing outside my off-campus apartment on 120th Street and looking north to Harlem. Smoke was rising from around 135th Street, and I worried about how close "that area" suddenly seemed. Would they decide to walk a few blocks south? When the smoke was still there the next day and the day after that, I realized it was coming from a chimney and probably had been for a long time.

The wilding/rampage meme is a powerful one, and some execrable characters on the Right know it. Get ready to hear about school bus spats and playground bloody noses for the next few years.