Race riot

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A British rioter hurls a Molotov cocktail during the Oldham riots

A race riot or racial riot is a violent civil disorder (i.e. a riot) in which race is a key factor. The term had entered the English language in the United States by the 1890s. Early use of the term in the United States referred to race riots which were often a mob action by members of the majority racial group against people of other races.

In the 1960s in the United States the term came to describe riots involving large numbers of members of racial minority groups. Physical aggression was often aimed at neighborhood business, government representatives and law enforcement agencies perceived as unfairly targeting racial groups.

According to the Kerner Commission report, the race riots in the United States in the 1960s usually took place in the context of underlying grievances of a minority racial group (in this case, African-Americans). Often there was an inciting incident in which a member of the minority racial group was injured or killed, and that incident was widely perceived in the community to be unjust. Rumors and gossip played a large role in these riots, because there was a lack of reliable information available to community members. The riots were sensationalized by the mass media. Matters became more complicated when armed government forces were used to quell disturbances.

Mob rule, religious intolerance, vigilantism, Jim Crow, lynching, racial profiling, economics, police brutality, institutional racism, urban renewal, and racial identity politics are often cited as causes of these riots. However, political decisions, repression and social hate by national or local levels of government and the larger community directed towards a certain race usually contributes to this type of riot.