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Ivan W.
Parkins |
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©Ivan W. Parkins 2009, All articles, text, web pages property of
Ivan W. Parkins. Use of any material
requires permission of the author
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About Ivan W. Parkins: Dr. Parkins is a retired professor of
Political Science from Central Michigan University. He received his PhD from the University of
Chicago and is a graduate of the United States Naval Academy. Dr. Parkins served as a naval officer
during WWII aboard the battleship Alabama.
He is a recent widower with three daughters, 3 grand children and 2
great grand children. Dr. Parkins has
written extensively, having authored 3 books and a newspaper opinion column
for many years. |
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Front Page |
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In This Issue: -Panic in
America? See what
I wrote in 1971 and it still
goes on today -Dividing
America, Another
example of media misrepresentation from 1971 -Democrats and Racial Disunity -New Americans and Multiculturalism |
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PANIC IN AMERICA The
following article is a reprint, The Daily Times-News, 3/26/71. It
illustrates the long history
of media involvement in determining perceptions of the American public
through false and misleading reporting.
By Ivan W. Parkins
Waves of public hysteria, fanned by leading journalists and academics,
may explain the greater part of America’s troubles over the past decade. Objections to such an explanation,
especially among journalists and academics, are (predictably) vehement. Indeed, hysteria as an explanation of our
troubles should be treated with skepticism; it implies gross inadequacies of
intellectual perception and moral responsibility in those groups and
institutions charged with informing and enlightening our society, and it
suggests that the rest of society may not be in need of drastic reforms. Now,
thanks to the article of Edward Jay Epstein, a Harvard instructor, in NEW
YORKER, February 13, 1971, we have remarkable illustration of panic in
America. The Epstein article deals
with the killings of Black Panthers by the police in 1969, and with how a
story about such killings was treated in the press. Beyond police-Panther relations, the
Epstein article demonstrates that those who arouse and shape American opinion
sometimes accept allegations of fact without investigation, repeat them
without qualification, and use them without restraint to charge brutal and
illegal behavior against public officials. A
brief resume of the Epstein article follows: In an early morning raid December 969, police killed Fred Hampton, Chairman of the Black
Panther Party of Illinois, and another Party member. Charles R. Gary, counsel for the Panthers,
charged that those made 27 and 28
police murders of Panthers and that they were part of a national conspiracy
to wipe out the Panthers. THE NEW YORK TIMES reported the Gary charges
without qualification or notice of the source, and relayed the story
to more than three hundred other papers which subscribe to its news
service. THE WASHINGTON POST acted
similarly. Other media took up the
charge of police “genocide” aimed at the Panthers. The few doubts and qualifications that were
published were little noticed as a Committee to Defend the Panthers was
formed and notable persons were quoted repeating the charge. Guerrilla warfare was predicted in our
cities. (Especially on campuses and in
“liberal” groups, a wave of protest mounted).
Actually, Epstein found, not even Panther spokesman Garry, who had
initiated the charge, was prepared to support it. Ten instances of police killing Panthers
were confirmed, but six of those killings were by policemen who had
themselves been seriously wounded and who did not know that the men they were
shooting at were Panthers. Several
occurred during police responses to reports of other crimes. Furthermore, such killings declined
following the Chicago raid. In short,
Epstein found no evidence to support the charge of a police conspiracy to
murder Panthers.
Strictly speaking, the Epstein article tells us little of anything
beyond police-Panther conflict in 1969 and the treatment which was given to
it in the press. I suggest that the
article illustrates much more. Like
all illustration, it is subject to the objection that what happened in that
instance was not typical of what usually happens. It is significant, however, that the
killings of Panthers by police were relatively objective matters, regarding
which records and witnesses were available, and that they occurred entirely
within American society. If such events
were falsely reported and grossly misrepresented for more than a year, how
much possibility is there of press and academic error in regard to matters as
complex and subjective as the purposes and conduct of War in S.E. Asia or the
urgency of political and social reform in the United States?
Personally, I feel deeply indebted to Mr. Epstein. For a number of years I have
contended—despite periodic attacks of self-doubt—that the crisis in America
consists mostly of panic. I have put
the blame for public hysteria chiefly upon the press and my own colleagues,
villains uncomfortably numerous, prestigious, and close to where I live. Since I have made little specific comment
upon police-Panther relations or upon how the press reported them, Mr.
Epstein has not proved me to be correct.
His article does illustrate, however, that those who are suppose to provide
information and enlightenment to America are capable of intellectual and
moral judgments as shallow as any with which I have charged them. |
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DIVIDING AMERICA By Ivan W. Parkins (The
following article was originally published in the Daily Times-News,
10/06/1971). You will notice some language usages at the time which were
acceptable, but currently are not used due to cultural sensitivities. This article
appeared also, in issue 14, Vol. 1 of APC. The Kerner Commission on civil disorders
in its final report stated that, “Our nation is moving toward two societies,
one black, one white – separate and unequal.”
That evaluation has been quoted again and again. Both the Johnson and the Nixon
Administrations have been castigated for a lack of enthusiasm in accepting
and implementing the report. The implication of the report and the
charge bluntly levied by a militant minority of Americans, is that racial
bigotry prevailing in the American public and intransigence existing in
American institutions makes reductions of our racial tensions unlikely. I am reminded that when I moved to
Michigan, just after the Detroit riots of 1967, the more specific prediction
, then popular in the press, was that more and bigger riots would soon
follow. I required one of my classes
to write a brief paper discussing the capacity of the American political
system to cope with the problem over the next five years. To my chagrin, I discovered that very few
of my own suggestions had been accepted by my students. Almost unanimously, they echoed predictions
of a holocaust borrowed from the news media. Arguing against “liberals” that a few
riots did not foreshadow a race war was a new role for me. I had moved from the South, where my
arguments were chiefly with segregationists, many of whom cited sporadic
violence and threats of violence as a reason why the civil rights movements
should be halted. Neither group seemed
to be aware that race relations during much of American history, especially
in the late nineteenth century, were more violent than during the recent
civil rights movement. Apparently, few
people considered race relations in the perspective of violence which
accompanied other great changes, such as the rise of labor unions. The violence of the civil rights
movement thus far has been moderate, when taken in the perspective of history
and considering the magnitude of the change.
Furthermore, there is growing
evidence of progress. Economic
gains, especially for the younger and more educated Negroes, are
substantial. Negro voting, and
successes in winning political offices, have multiplied. It is largely in the more subtle area of
white-black attitudes toward one another that some people still claim to find
bases for pessimism. Several major opinions polls in recent
years have produced results suggesting that white attitudes are less bigoted
and intransigent, and black expectations more moderate, than some journalists
and intellectuals would have us believe.
Recently, the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research,
probably the foremost center in attitudinal survey in the world has published
confirmation that white and black attitudes are converging. The quiet progress of school
busing for integration purposes in most of the South is a visible refutation
of the pessimistic evaluations of our people and our institutions. The failure of most pessimists to support
their arguments with solid evidence does not mean that there is no racial
problem in America. Samuel Lubell’s Hidden Crisis in American Politics provides both reasons
for concern and some grounds for hope .
Lubell has been interviewing representative Americans in their homes
while too many other journalists and academics were populating the country
with Archie Bunkers, fictitious characters whose principal virtue is making
intellectuals feel smugly superior.
Lubell found, not attitudinal bigotry, but specific problems of
competition for housing and job opportunities, and fears for personal safety
to be the roots of tension. He
attributed much of this to population mobility (southern farms to northern
cities, cities to suburbs). Such
material problems pose difficult problems to American society; they do not
imply degeneracy in the American character. Senator Fred Harris, himself a member of
the Kerner Commission, referred in LOOK magazine (3/18/1969) to racism as
“the number one mental health problem in America.” Considering the failure of attitudinal
surveys to support such evaluations, it is fair to inquire whether views such
as those of Harris may not be both and impediment to racial understanding and
an additional major cause of division in America. |
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New Americans and Multiculturalism This is a reprint from Issue 15,
Vol. 1. By Ivan W. Parkins One of the greatest of liberal, mainly
Democrat, changes to America in recent decades has been
multiculturalism. Regarding this and
related matters, I recommend Michael Barone’s book, THE NEW AMERICANS: HOW
THE MELTING POT CAN WORK AGAIN. Barone compares Irish immigrants during
the mid-nineteenth century with the great migration of Black Americans north
from the Old South, especially that since 1940. He also compares Italian and later Latino
immigrants, and Jews with recent Asians.
All are interesting, but the Irish/Black comparison is especially
sharp in the political lessons that it offers. Barone concludes that “race, as liberals
have wisely insisted for years, is an arbitrary category.” But, “the descendents of past immigrants
have now become deeply interwoven into the fabric of American life.” It can happen again. “There is less overt bigotry and
discrimination,” now. “The greatest
obstacle…is the American elite”; it, since the 1960s, does not promote
assimilation. He points out that in one major respect
the Irish fared much better than recent Blacks. Both came from crude and repressive
environments, poorly educated, inclined to violence and uncivil. Both also relied heavily on their own
churches. The Irish soon learned the
advantages of discipline and civility in Catholic schools; the Blacks
encountered public schools that would change to accommodate their
shortcomings. Partisan ship is not emphasized by
Barone; with the 2008 election pending, it will be by me. Multiculturalism, and its implied divisions
of America, is mainly an innovation of liberal Democrats, and mainly since
the Vietnam era. It has been imposed,
or “sold,” as an example of acceptance of other cultures as equal to, and as
appropriate as, our own. Actually,
from my own experiences, it seems to be more a rejection of traditional
America and of the chief types of leadership that America has produced. Do liberal Democrats really want to
improve upon the America that we have known, or do they plan instead to
replace that with a quasi-Marxist nirvana, their own ”creation”? |
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Democrats
and Racial Disunity By Ivan W. Parkins This is
a reprint from May of 2008 The “1960’s” were a turbulent time for American political
parties. Increased black participation
was changing both the northern cities to which blacks were migrating and the
old solid Democratic South. Meanwhile,
the Supreme Court held that America’s often very unequal legislative
districting was unconstitutional. How
could Democrats survive the changes? More educated and “sophisticated”
Democrats in the larger cities of the Northeast and Midwest would have
additional congressional seats to work with.
The Old South would lose most of its near monopoly of congressional
committee chairmanships. Rural
Republicans of the Midwest would lose numerous congressional seats, but many
of them could be regained in the new suburbs that were emerging. A major question was how would be
increasing black vote go? Black voters
had traditionally leaned Republican, until Franklin Roosevelt won many of
them over. More of the black vote, now
would be strategically located in large cities and our most populous
states. Given the practice of
allocating all of the electoral votes in most states to the presidential
candidate who had plurality in that state, a bloc-vote by blacks in major
cities became a major key to Democrat success. Meanwhile, however, most of the new civil
rights legislation had been enacted with largely, Republican support. Democrats needed to assure that a new
and more militant leadership dominated black communities. In that, the media, academic and artistic
as well as journalistic, would be a great help. The new racial and civil rights picture
that emerged in the 1960’s might have led to greater national unity than ever
before. But that might also have
undermined a Democrat Party that had long depended upon the Solid South for
its margins of victory. Rather than
face such a consequence, the more educated and “liberal” Democrats turned to
memorializing past racial injustices and cultivating more militant black
leaders. Peace and racial unity would
have to await another day. I.W. Parkins, 5/08 |
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So, What Are We to Conclude? Race is an old playbook item by the liberal elite and
it is being used again. Only the
advent of competitive media reporting
has limited it’s effect on the American public today. The imperative of
Democrat liberals has become,
“establish lasting dominance now, or else lose their control” . Greater variety in both the avenues and the
political leanings of communication media have eroded the dominance of the
"old mainstream". The continued endurance of school vouchers and
the public's rejection of reverse racism are also threats, not to America,
but to the power of the liberal elite.
The following articles are an illustration of this process. |