In his description of his anti-abolitionist riot, Anbinder does not highlight race itself as the main instigator of the tensions. Instead, she puts forth the case that this riot was—as the label “anti-abolitionist” implies—about abolitionists versus anti-abolitionists. In doing so, he and the narrative that he crafts make the argument that this was about outrage over whites and blacks working together for the cause of abolition. The blasphemy in the eyes of the anti-abolitionists was things like Tappan inviting Cornish into the church and Cox’s “condemning the intolerance of his parishioners.” It was not just about race—it was about the racial and ethnic relations between whites and blacks who together were advocating for greater tolerance and abolition. Herman, however, does not address this cause as a component of ethnic succession. Therefore, his argument is not particularly useful in evaluating that of Anbinder. While the two cases do not oppose one another, it seems that they are essentially discussing different phenomena and Herman’s piece doesn’t help us to explain why the Five Points riots that Anbinder describes occurred.
Overall, I am convinced of the general gist of the paradigm that Herman poses. I also think it has many problems and weak points, though. It seems that his model works only with the examples that he gives and just others similar to them. His argument is very specific to particular conditions and it doesn’t seem that his concept of ethnic succession can be applied universally. For example, there have been many situations in which ethnic groups arrived in a particular neighborhood and did not face blatant discrimination, injustice, or violence, such as certain cases in New York City. There of course have been plenty of times, as Herman illustrates, when there was violence as a result of the arrival of new ethnic groups, but it’s not necessarily the rule as part of a phenomenon of ethnic succession. Herman’s model seems better suited to explain particular settings and circumstances than to be applied generally and arbitrarily to a variety of situations.
Additionally, Herman implies incredible agency on the part of particular ethnic groups. He portrays them as remarkably centralized and organized groups that act as a single unit. While of course many ethnic groups often band together—whether in neighborhoods and residential areas, politics, or a particular sector of the economy—due to a common culture and familiarity, I don’t buy the implication in this model that ethnic groups always work together with such uniformity, group discipline, and agency.
That being said, it still does reflect many situations that we’ve seen throughout history (such as the examples in his article) and in daily life. On a much smaller scale, many ethnic groups stick together in school and smaller communities because of a lack of familiarity with others. It is natural to fear what is unknown and to cling to what is recognizable, as Herman describes. This has a great tendency to create ethnic tension. It starts off almost as s defense mechanism and eventually develops into intolerance, tension, and maybe even violence.
–Jonathan Eckman
