Fear and Fury: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In this masterful, groundbreaking work, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Heather Ann Thompson reveals how the infamous New York subway shooting of 1984 divided a nation, unveiling the potent cocktail of rage and resentment that ushered in a new era of white vigilante violence.

On December 22, 1984, white New Yorker Bernhard Goetz shot four Black teenagers at point-blank in a New York City subway car. Goetz slipped into the subway tunnels undetected, fleeing the city to evade capture. From the moment Goetz turned himself in, the narrative surrounding the shooting became a matter of extraordinary debate, igniting public outcry and capturing the attention of the nation.

While Goetz's guilt was never in show more question, media outlets sensationalized the event, redirecting public ire toward the victims themselves. In the end, it would take two grand juries and a civil suit to achieve justice on behalf of the four Black teenagers. For some, Goetz would go on to become a national hero, inciting a disturbing new chapter in American history. This brutal act revealed a white rage and resentment much deeper, larger, and more insidious than the actions of Bernie Goetz himself. Intensified by politicians and tabloid media, it would lead a stunning number of white Americans to celebrate vigilantism as a fully legitimate means for addressing racial fear, fracturing American race relations.

Drawing from never-before-seen and archival interviews, newspaper accounts, legal files, and more, Heather Ann Thompson sheds new light on the social and political conditions which set the stage for these events, delving into the lives of Goetz and his four victims—Darrell Cabey, Barry Allen, Troy Canty, and James Ramseur. Fear and Fury is the remarkable account and searing indictment of a crucial turning point in American history.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The most powerful, privileged, cosseted, spoiled class of people in the entire history of the planet feel aggrieved and put-upon by those hugely less fortunate than themselves. It is the single biggest victory ever won by a lie over the truth. This is the story of one of the most important moments in the long campaign to weaponize class struggle...downwards.

A similar, racialized effort has been just as stunningly successful, much of it supercharged by the crime committed by Goetz. There are now "stand your ground laws" in many states, one of which got George Zimmerman off a murder conviction in the case of Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman is now 42; Martin died at seventeen. Goetz is 79. Darrell Cabey is a paraplegic with the functional capacity of an eight-year-old. But Goetz is a hero to a lot of (mostly) white people because he shot a bunch of aggressive, stupid teenagers because he "felt threatened."

In reading this careful, unimpeachably sourced story of how this came to pass and the world that's followed the crime it details, I got angrier and angrier. It was my New York, the one I moved to, that was being described; yet I felt unfamiliar with it, unable to imagine myself in this city. I was admittedly young; I had little more than the rudiments of a social conscience, or an honest awareness of racial injustice; but to learn so very much I absolutely had no idea about or access to? Humbling. Infuriating, because of what I was learning.

If you're willing to go on a long, well-footnoted trip into the ugliest part of US white mens' psyches, if you'd like to know why I cheered and clapped when Hinckley made his attempt to rid us of Reagan, if you weren't even born when these events transpired and just wonder how shit got so fucked up in this country, read this book.

It's not light reading. It's serviceable writing, it never ignited my excitement; but it's not poorly done, not boring, not awkward. It does what this kind of non-fiction is meant to do. That's a good thing, if not a toe-tingling one. I hope you'll keep it in mind, get it from the library, see if you find a sale on it in one format or another. It's well worth your time. show less

This book is the definitive line drawn between the destructive impoverishment policies of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton; from Charles Bronson's "Death Wish" to Bernard Goetz to Guardian Angels to ICE; from the NY Daily News to Fox and Newsmax; from Giuliani to Trump; to Black Lives Matter and Occupy Wall Street. It's a fascinating recounting of the background and the trial of Bernie Goetz, an admitted racist and gun nut, who bought a gun in Florida illegally and shot four Black teenage boys on a NYC subway trip when one of them asked him for five dollars. Pent-up white rage set off by hard times and fear of people of color made Goetz a white cultural hero, just like Kyle Rittenhouse, who also got off scot-free from his one-man crime show more wave. The author's recounting of the Goetz trial, her extensive interviews with attorneys and the families of the victims, is riveting, and her analysis of the ebb and flow of racist actions, including the murders of George Floyd and Armaud Arbery, is convincing and insightful. The inclusion of the not guilty verdict for Daniel Penny, a white man who murdered the mentally ill Black panhandler Jordan Neely on the subway in 2024, almost 40 years to the day that Goetz fired his gun, is striking. This is true American history and this should be used as a high school and college textbook, rather than being erased. show less

I think this book could be interesting, but right now it hits too close to home. Should be worth reading later.