ABSTRACT
This chapter includes selections which span the range of theoretical perspectives on racial violence, though by no means all viewpoints are represented. It shows how the location of an individual within the social structure can influence the perspective he chooses. It combines taxonomic and social structural interpretation. The chapter identifies three main sets of interpretations of the occurrences, and relates the various explanations to the locations of their proponents within the social structure. The three interpretations can be most easily identified by using the labels for the violence given by their adherents: civil disturbance, racial revolt, class assault. The Detroit "race riot" of 1943 was a case, one in which large mobs of whites and Negroes directly confronted members of the opposite group in a pattern of racial warfare. Psychologically, Negro race riots are violent outbreaks of infantile father hatred.
