I just watched the PBS documentary American Experience: Blackout about the 25 hours without power in New York City in 1977:
As Wednesday, July 13, 1977 dawned hot and humid, New Yorkers prepared themselves for another sweltering day. It was the first day of a nine-day heat wave that would become the hottest in New York City history. The once-booming city had been suffering years of economic decline. It was on the verge of bankruptcy; both unemployment rates and crime rates were high; police and firefighters had been laid off; municipal services, including sanitation and after-school programs, had been cut; and a serial killer named Son of Sam was still on the loose, keeping everyone on edge.
When a severe thunderstorm hit, the lights went out, and some eight million people plunged into darkness in New York City and surrounding areas. By the time the power was fully restored more than a day later, more than 1,600 businesses had been looted, more than 3,000 people had been arrested, and firefighters had battled more than 1,000 fires. The affected neighborhoods would never be the same.
I noticed that in the documentary the white areas of New York, whites got together and had a block party. I noticed that in the black and latino areas, blacks and latinos got together and looted.
As America imports more third-world people, it develops more third-world problems, such as infrastructure breaking down and crime increasing (the Ferguson Effect).
The talking heads on this PBS program blame the looting on class not race but the pictures show looters who are overwhelmingly black (with some latinos). Poor whites by and large did not loot. Poor east-asians by and large did not loot.
With sophisticated and intrusive policing, and with welfare flowing, a rich country like the USA can keep a handle on its black and brown underclass, but when the system breaks down, savagery triumphs.
