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Article
How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? The Missing Kerner Commission Report
The Russell Sage Found. J. Soci. Sci (2018)
  • Malik Edwards, North Carolina Central University School of Law
  • Keisha L. Bentley-Edwards
  • Cynthia N. Spence
  • William A. Darity, Jr.
  • Darrick Hamilton
  • Jasson Perez
Abstract
Using an intersectional lens of race and gender, this article offers a critique of the Kerner Commission report and fills the gap of the missing analysis of white rage and of black women. A protracted history of white race riots resulted in the loss of black lives, black-owned property, and constitutional rights. However, only black riots, marked by the loss of white-owned property but few white lives, was the issue that prompted the formation of a national commission to investigate the events. Then and now, the privileging of white property rights over black life and liberty explains why black revolts result in presidential commissions, but white terror campaigns have never led to any comparable study.
Disciplines
Publication Date
September, 2018
Citation Information
Malik Edwards, How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? The Missing Kerner Commission Report, 4 The Russell Sage Found. J. Soci. Sci., 20 (September 2018).