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discourse over race. The previously privileged majority exploded in angry resentment at having to share space with the formerly excluded.

Opinion leaders began to reformulate and redefine the terms of the discussion. No longer was the Kerner Commission's description of the problem acceptable.

Any indictment of white america could be abandoned, and a Ssuan Smith defense was adopted -- black people did it, did it to the country, did it to themselves. Black behavior -- not white racism -- became the reason why whites nad blacks lived in separate worlds. Racism retreated and apthology advanced. The burden of racial problem solving shifted from racism's creators to its victims. The fialure of the lesser breeds to enjoy society's fruits became their fault alone. In a kind of nonsensical tautology we heard again and again: these people are poor because they are pathological, they are pathological because they are poor.

Blacks and pushy women were blamed for America's demise, and further blamed for declining incomes, rising unemployment, and the loss of job advancement. Today the United Nations, Washington bureaucrats, and supporters of minority and women's rights have replaced the Soviety Union as the evil empire; the America's most privileged population, white men, suddenly became a victim class.

Just as economic security creates a climatei n which social justice prospers, economic stagnation breeds an environment of political scapegoating and social hostility.