experienced by blacks. To sum of the this analysis and to deliver what MAY have been the“root cause” or at the very least a necessary precondition for the Detroit riots, Iwill quote a passage from Gurr (Why Men Rebel, p. 160)Some of men’s perspectives on violence are psychocultural in origin, the resultof socialization patterns that encourage or discourage outward displays ofaggression and of cultural traditions which sanction violent collectiveresponses to various kinds of deprivation. These perspectives are underlyingattitudes about or normative predispositions toward violence. There isconsiderable variation in such attitudes within most cultures; evidence alsosuggests that modal dispositions toward violence vary significantly from onenation to another and from one subculture to another within nations. Theseunderlying attitudes are separable from the doctrines that men accept in thecourse of their lives which provide them with specific justifications forviolence in response to their immediate political circumstances. Such doctrinesconventionally are categorized as “ideologies,” which in their most elaborateform can serve to stimulate mutual awareness among the discontented, providethem with elaborate explanations about the causes of their discontent, givenormative sanction to violent action against political objects and identifyutopian objectives to be attained by so acting. ...
