Long Before MAGA’s White Grievance, There Was Bernie Goetz
In 1984, a white man named Bernie Goetz shot four unarmed black youths on a New York City subway train. The tabloids hailed him as a fed-up everyman — rhetoric that permeated the culture and intensified a culture of white grievance and racist vigilantism.
In Reagan-era New York City, a white man named Bernie Goetz opened fire on four unarmed black youths in the New York City subway. The tabloid media hailed him as a vigilante hero, setting the tone for modern right-wing racial grievance politics. (Bettmann / Getty Images)
On December 22, 1984, a pale, dweeby, thirty-seven-year-old white man named Bernhard Goetz boarded a subway car bound for Lower Manhattan. After taking a seat close to four rambunctious black teenagers — nineteen-year-olds Barry Allen, Darrell Cabey, and Troy Canty, and eighteen-year-old James Ramseur — Goetz started glaring in their direction.
One of these teenagers, Troy Canty, decided to greet Goetz. “Hey, what’s up?” Canty asked. Goetz acknowledged Canty’s greeting in a friendly, if unenthusiastic, manner.
Emboldened, Canty sidled up more closely to Goetz and, with a slight smile curling up on his face, said, “Hey, man. How about giving us five bucks?”
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