The fire-ravaged skylines engulfing U.S. cities in the 1960s left such an enduring impression on the nation's historical imagination that they have obscured the far more destructive and more protracted fire wave of the 1970s. Mention the conflagrations that overtook U.S. cities in the second half of the twentieth century to someone born after 1980, and they are likely to summon the long, hot summers of the 1960s that laid waste to Watts, Newark, Detroit, and hundreds of other cities from coast to coast. These were fires born of Black and Puerto Rican outrage over the persistence of institutionalized white supremacy even in the face of a civil rights movement at its heyday. Historians generally describe this era of uprisings as stretching from Birmingham in 1963 to the nationwide uproar following Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968, or even to the unrest in Camden in 1971. Whether measured in dollars or lives lost, the destruction wrought by these uprisings pales in comparison to the wave of arson-for-profit in the 1970s. In 1967, the most violent year of the uprisings, the number of dead were counted in “the tens” and the insurable losses totaled $75 million. By contrast, throughout the 1970s at least five hundred people died of arson annually in the United States (this number is a low estimate), and by 1980 arson claimed a $15 billion annual toll. Admittedly, these are crude and fraught barometers of historical significance, and by no means do I wish to downplay the implications of the earlier uprisings. Rather, I would like to consider what is at stake for historical memory when stories of Black uprising in the 1960s obfuscate the structural violence inflicted upon Black and brown neighborhoods—primarily by landlords—over the subsequent decade.¹¹

中文翻译：

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保险的危机和危机的保障：1960年代起义后的防暴再保险和重新编排

1960年代席卷美国的大火烧毁的天际线给美国的历史想象留下了持久的印象，以至掩盖了1970年代更具破坏性和更持久的大火。提到在20世纪下半叶风行一时的美国大城市，是1980年以后出生的人，他们很可能会召唤1960年代漫长而炎热的夏天，这给瓦特，纽瓦克，底特律和其他数百个城市造成了浪费从东海岸到西海岸。这些是布莱克和波多黎各人对制度化的白人至上主义的持续存在的愤怒而引发的大火，即使面对全盛时期的民权运动也是如此。历史学家通常将起义时代描述为从1963年的伯明翰一直延续到马丁·路德·金（Martin Luther King Jr）之后的全国性骚动。1968年被暗杀，甚至于1971年在卡姆登发生动荡。无论是以美元计价还是丧命，与1970年代纵火营利浪潮相比，这些起义造成的破坏都相形见pale。1967年是起义中最暴力的一年，死亡人数以“十万”计，可保损失总计7500万美元。相比之下，在整个1970年代，美国每年至少有五百人死于纵火（这个数字是一个低估），到1980年，纵火每年造成150亿美元的损失。诚然，这些都是具有历史意义的粗略而充满生气的晴雨表，我绝不希望淡化早先起义的含意。相当，¹¹