White Innocence Myths in Citizen Discourse, The Progressive Era (1974–1988)

Abstract

This study offers an analysis of 288 letters to the editor during one of the most allegedly progressive periods in US race relations, 1974–1988. Citizens' letters produced a mythic narrative that offered images of White innocence and victimage in order to resist federal desegregation orders, maintain political advantages, deflect racist accusations, and justify anti-Black hate crimes. By doing so, citizens blamed Blacks and liberals for persistent social problems while maintaining White privilege. The formal structures of this diffuse mythic narrative are (a) the purified scene (or rebirth), (b) individualistic heroes, and (c) institutional enemies. This article also exposes the limitations of rugged individualism myths to resolve racial inequalities, anti-Black racism, White privilege, segregation, poverty, and White masculine hate crimes.

KEYTERMS:

• citizen discourse
• mythic narrative
• White innocence
• White privilege
• Whiteness

The author thanks Kathleen Haspel, Dana Cloud, Karlyn Campbell, Barry Brummett, the editor, and anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions, advice, and support.

Notes

Although his primary focus was not citizen discourse, Gresson (2004) cited discourse generated by ordinary citizens (e.g., e-mail messages, interviews, student autobiographies, personal anecdotes and letters to the editor).

These categories were also consistent with those developed by “symbolic” or “modern racism” researchers in the 1980s and 1990s, who discovered Whites openly supported equal rights for Blacks, while opposing efforts to bring them about (see Entman, 1990). The categories also coincide with the readings of critical scholars (see Gabriel, 1998).

The cases were the following: (a) From 1974–1978, federal judicial orders to desegregate South Boston public schools were met with extreme resistance, protest, and violence by Whites in South Boston. (b) In a landmark ruling in 1976, the Supreme Court held that using strict racial quotas in medical and law school admissions were unconstitutional, but affirmative action policies and racial considerations to redress past discrimination were found constitutional. The Bakke case had broad implications for all affirmative action policies and produced charges of reverse discrimination. (c) In an historic and closely contested election marked by accusations of racism, Harold Washington was the first Black man elected mayor of Chicago in 1983. (d) In 1988, the former Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi sympathizer, David Duke, was elected State Senator from the 81st District in Metairie, Louisiana. Duke also won the majority of support from White voters in three successive Louisiana elections for Governor and the U.S. senate. (e) In 1987, three marches (two of which were interrupted) to honor Martin Luther King's birthday and promote racial harmony erupted into violence between 6,000 counter-demonstrators, 300 White supremacists and 20,000 civil rights marchers in Forsyth County, Georgia, capturing broad national attention. (f) In 1988, three Black male teenagers were chased and beaten by twelve white Italian American male teenagers in Howard Beach, New York, touching off public debates about a resurgence of racism in the United States.

I found that the large regional dailies included citizens' letters from various regions of the United States. David Duke's election only produced 34 letters to the editor in The Times-Picayune, and most of them appeared after the election. While discussing these data with me, Professor Mark Knapp speculated that perhaps there was self-censorship by the newspaper and citizens about David Duke's election. Gabriel (1998) made a similar charge about the Times-Picayune's coverage of David Duke's campaigns and election. 54 letters to the editor concerning the Bakke case appeared in The Los Angeles Times after the California and U.S. Supreme Court verdicts, all of which were examined and analyzed. In the four cases that produced more than 55 letters (e.g., Harold Washington's victorious mayoral election generated over 150 letters in The Chicago Tribune), 50 letters were randomly selected, with special preference given to letters that were longer in length. I also attempted to capture the representative qualities of the letters, so that all of the letters were placed along a spectrum from those reproducing to those resisting racial ideologies.

Garden Grove (1976, November 15). [Letter to the editor]. The Los Angeles Times, pt. 2, p. 6.

Not bigotry or racism. (1976, January 12). [Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A13.

Milton. (1975, November 17). Prejudice dies hard. [Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A19.

Function of schools. (1976, January 28). [Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A22.

Louisville. (1975, December 23). School busing ‘idiotic’ [Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A20.

Louisville. (1975, December 23). School busing ‘idiotic’ [Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A20.

Shreveport, Louisiana. (1974, October 2). Where were you?…[Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe 2, p. A18.

Norfolk, Virginia (1974, September 30). Looking down…[Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A17.

Morristown. (1974, October 4). [Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A20.

Little Rock recalled. (1974, October 2). [Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A18.

Ask the people. (1974, October 13). [Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A7.

Chicago. (1983, April 12). [Letter to the editor]. The Chicago Tribune, sec. 1, p. 18.

Lemann (1991) reports that over 5 million blacks migrated from the south to urban northern urban cities, including Chicago, from 1940 to 1970.

See Chicago's morning after. (1983, May 2). The New Republic, p. 8–10.

Los Angeles. (1977, October 23). [Letter to the editor]. The Los Angeles Times, pt. 7, p. 4.

Japanese lessons. (1976, January 6). [Letter to the editor]. The Boston Globe, p. A6.

Would the Ram's fans…(1977, October 23). [Letter to the editor]. The Los Angeles Times, pt. 7, p. 4.

An estimated two thousand police and national guardsmen were needed to protect the marchers, costing 670 million dollars. See Forsyth County v. Nationalist Movement, 505 U.S. 123 (1992).

Southern symbol sullied (1987, February 9). [Letter to the editor]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. A8.

Flag misuse resented. (1987, February 13). [Letter to the editor]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. A18.

Americus. (1987, February 16). Flag of unity. [Letter to the editor]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. A10.

Marietta. (1987, February 1). Uproar shocked the country. [Letter to the editor]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. C4.

Racists have long waved stars and bars (1987, February 12). The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. A30.

Metairie. (1989, January 26). Indiscretion. [Letter to the editor]. The Times-Picayune, p. A20; Metairie (1989, January 27). Remarks offensive. [Letter to the editor]. The Times-Picayune, p. A10.

Criticizes editorial. (1989, February 8). [Letter to the editor]. The Times-Picayune, p. B8.

North Riverside. (1983, March 27). [Letter to the editor]. The Chicago Tribune, sec. 2, p 7.

One other flag. (1987, February 18). [Letter to the editor]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. A10.

Professor Kathleen Haspel observed that citizen critics attempt to elevate their status with that of journalists and institutional officials by claiming to be eyewitnesses.

Louisiana State Representative David Duke was among the protesters arrested at the march.

Chicago. (1983, April 21). [Letter to the editor]. The Chicago Tribune, sec. 1, p. 22.

Motives that mark attacks. (1987, February 3). [Letter to the editor]. Newsday, Viewpoints, 61.

Edward I. Koch. (1987, February 6). Silent treatment isn't a cure. [Letter to the editor]. Newsday, Viewpoints, p. 78.

Roslindale. (1987, January 9). [Letter to the editor]. Newsday, Viewpoints, p. 81.

Bayside. (1989, September 21). [Letter to the editor]. Newsday, Viewpoints, p. 56.

Federal Bureau of Investigation, Committee on Uniform Crime Records. (1988), Uniform Crime Reports for the United States. Washington, DC: U S. Department of Justice, pp. 11–14.

The 1989 “Central Park Jogger” case was the rape and assault of a White woman by a gang of five Black male teenagers whose convictions were vacated by the New York Supreme Court in 2002, based on DNA evidence. The “Tawana Brawley case” is a highly disputed allegation of repeated rape and assault of an African American teenage girl by a group of White males, some whom were police officers. The police officers were acquitted by a grand jury.

See enough already (1987, April 9). [Letter to the editor]. Newsday, Viewpoints, p. 94.

Alpharetta. (1987, February 8). Williams has right answers for more positive climate. [Letter to the editor]. The Atlanta Constitution, p. D4.

Atlanta. (1987, February 13). The real problems. [Letter to the editor]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. A18.

Atlanta. (1987, February 13). The real problems. [Letter to the editor]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. A18.

Jonesboro. (1987, February 2). Crime is what Forsyth County residents don't want. [Letter to the editor]. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, p. A8.

Hart (2001) argued that letters to the editor are organic because they are unsolicited data or responses arising from contexts in which citizens provide “reasoning” about their real life issues, problems and concerns (p. 410).

The phrase “crying racism” is perhaps the precursor of the now common phrase “the race card” accusation made infamous by the O.J. Simpson criminal trial.

Carpenter (1990) reported that the press described Bernhard Goetz using Western terms, such as “vigilante,” for shooting four young Blacks who threatened him on a New York subway car (p. 17).