There is a bitter irony to Dr. Clark's remarks, because in some respects race relations in the U.S. have not stayed the same, as bad as that would have been, but have actually gotten worse. Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of policing.I read that report … of the 1919 riot in Chicago, and it is as if I were reading the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of '35, the report of the investigating committee on the Harlem riot of '43, the report of the McCone Commission on the Watts riot. I must again in candor say to you members of this Commission—it is a kind of Alice in Wonderland—with the same moving picture reshown over and over again, the same analysis, the same recommendations, and the same inaction.
The beat patrolman himself is expected to participate and to file a minimum number of "stop-and-frisk" or field interrogation reports for each tour of duty. This pressure to produce, or a lack of familiarity with the neighborhood and its people, may lead to widespread use of these techniques without adequate differentiation between genuinely suspicious behavior and behavior which is suspicious to a particular officer merely because it is unfamiliar.
All of these observations still retain far too much truth. Low-income neighborhoods have higher prices. The welfare bureaucracy is still a powerful American force (except for during the pandemic, when states waived much of the requirements for access to it). The last major tax reform overwhelmingly benefited the rich. We're still fighting expensive foreign wars halfway across the globe while arguing about how to pay for basic social and infrastructure programs at home. Schools are still horrifically segregated with minority schools still subject to "disorder and neglect." But King had even more prescient, incisive remarks, probably the most accurate words about the Kerner Report ever spoken. In short, he predicted people would say nice things about the report and then do nothing, "because for many people simply to acknowledge evil ends their responsibility."We have a national emergency. The prospect of cities aflame is very real indeed, but I would also remind America of the continuing violence perpetrated daily by racism in our society. The ghetto is looted by outside usurious profit-makers. Poor people are victimized by a riotous Congress and welfare bureaucracy. Lawlessness against persons exercising civil rights continues. The insult of closed housing statutes is preserved and sanctified by white society. Flame-throwers in Vietnam fan the flames in our cities. Children are condemned to attend schools which are institutions of disorder and neglect. The lives, the incomes, the well-being of poor people everywhere in America are plundered by our economic system. No wonder that men who see their communities raped by this society sometimes turn to violence.