The Dead Rabbits riot was a conflict in New York City among the gangs: the Dead Rabbits and the Bowery Boys. It was a battle between the Irish American Immigrants and the anti-Irish and anti-Catholic Americans. These gangs could not be contained by the weak police force because they were ruled by wealthy and corrupt politicians or infamous public figures. The dispute extended to the contradicting belief the Irish Americans and the nativists had about taverns and liquor. The Americans complained that the Irish and the Germans had an unfair dominance over the liquor supply in the United States. Irish pubs, saloons, and groceries were operating on every block of the city. The absurd number of beer halls made the nativists believe these groups of immigrants had an unhealthy drinking habit by their standards, but in reality the Irish just saw these taverns and groceries as social spaces rather than places to get drunk. The nativists were offended by the liquor practices of the Irish Americans, and tried to enforce prohibition laws that would put most of these family-operated saloons out of business. As a result, many powerful gangs rose up to fight against the suppressing actions of the Americans.
I have experienced seeing a racial conflict occur in my high school. Because of the recent increase of police brutality against blacks, the African Americans at Brooklyn Technical High School started voicing their opinions through social media, more specifically Facebook. Many of my friends belonging to this minority group made statuses on how they felt about the police targeting African Americans, and they even had stand offs in class. This was brought to the schools’s attention, because the principal had sent out an e-mail to the students saying he was aware of the recent events taking place in the school and wanted to address the fact that we should not be a divided community. In my four years of attendance I have never seen the students at my high school so divided. Thankfully, no physical conflict took place, but there was clearly tension among the blacks and the majority of the whites. When a racial group believes is is being discriminated against in society, people all around the city or state will support the movement for justice. This was demonstrated on a smaller community scale with the minority groups at my school.
