Joshua Sloan
There are many issues that lead to tension in ethnic succession. People naturally want to be surrounded with people of similar backgrounds due to the ability to relate to the members of their community. Members of other ethnic or cultural backgrounds are sometimes seen as a threat to the monotony homogeneity brings to the community.
I find the article convincing considering it parallels what I see in my own community. Herman brings up the uniting force religion brings and its capability to disregard varying ethnic backgrounds. In my community, a predominantly Jewish community, there are Jews from a plethora of backgrounds – some are from Spain, others from Poland and even a minor contingency of South African Jews. There is no detectable animosity between Jews of different countries, but rather a unity amongst us all because of our single religion. This is similar to the Catholic community In Pilsen, Chicago, where Mexican and Polish inhabitants unite on a religious plateau.
Although externally it would appear that the motivation for the anti-abolitionist movement was solely due to the equality abolitionism posed, some factors lead me to believe the opposite. One major clue to indicate that equality wasn’t the sole impetus to the riot was the lack of targeted destruction of the more squalid black neighborhoods. An alley known as “Cow Bay” was untouched during the riot, while the more prosperous African American neighborhoods that featured thriving business were left uninhabitable. Herman discusses in his article the economic threat that members of different ethnic groups may pose on the indigenous inhabitants. I’m led to believe that the economic threat of successful African American business played a major role in targeting which neighborhoods were destroyed during the anti-abolitionist riot.
Tension between the native Americans, Irish, and Chinese was palpable in The 5 Points. Efforts were made to rid the 5 points of the ethnicities that you did not belong to; this led to bloodshed and constant fear and unease. The ethnic animosity of the 5 Points is exemplified in the movie Gangs of New York. Although Gangs of New York isn’t 100% historically accurate, it still illustrates the mercurial tension that was prevalent at the time and the incredible disdain each ethnicity maintained for the other. A lot of these tensions were due to economical issues and the threat of the newcomers taking the jobs that the original inhabitants had, but a lot of the acrimony was simply due to the neighbors being of a different race. Herman discusses the impact of both the economical threat posed by immigrants and the threat to homogeneity immigrants present; two major factors that led to the violence in the 5 Points.
Joshua Sloan
