Talk:Hard Hat Riot

A fact from this article was featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the On this day section on May 8, 2013, May 8, 2017, and May 8, 2020.

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NPOV problems

The lack of references has been taken care of. The NPOV has also been dealt with by a massive rewrite. - Tim1965 01:43, 12 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Brennan

The citations DO NOT support the statement that "some organizations claim Brennan provoked the attack". At least having searched Fomer (through questia) and Freeman (through jstor), I see no statement that backs up the quote.--Work permit (talk) 01:31, 4 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Premeditation

Since the New Yort Times seems to be the main source of this article I think the article reflects some shallow reporting by the NY Times. The counter demonstration (riot) was preplaned and I know this first hand because I walked into a business in Union City, New Jersey earlier that week and found about a half a dozen men with hacksaws cutting rebar into 12 to 18 inch lengths. When I asked what was going on I was informed these were to be weapons to breakup a "hippie demonstration in New York." These men were not construction workers but knew of the hard hats' plan ahead of time and went to New York to join the group. They were not casually drawn into the group they were there specifically to join the riot. Also I clearly remember the TV photos of the riot and doubt the bloody injuries to the student's came from being hit on their heads by the hard hats. I don't doubt some people were hit by hard hats being wielded as weapons, but I'm sure the weapon of choice for the day were the rebars.

G8r22 (talk) 01:02, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Unsourced edits

I removed unsourced additions by"an eye witness". Please add reliable sources.Work permit (talk) 01:37, 23 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]

"political prisoners"

Why is "political prisoners" in scare quotes? Unless there is compelling reason to do so, this seems like bad style. - The Hanged Man (talk) 18:54, 3 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Colson?

The box on the right identifies Charles "Chuck" Colson as a "perpetrator". The article explains he reached out to the union leaders after the riot, but on what basis can he be called a "perpetrator" of the riot itself? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.39.177.68 (talk) 17:57, 18 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Catholics

Given the demographics of hardhats in NY at the time and the fact that some of the hardhats in question "ripped the Red Cross and Episcopal Church flags down from a flag pole at nearby Trinity Church", I think it is fair to say, just as with the New York draft riots, when two Protestant churches were burnt to the ground, that the overwhelming majority of the hardhat thugs were Catholics, as I have added. Quis separabit? 21:11, 23 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

re change 17:40, 27 August 2020 -- "this paragraph was spoiled with errors. So I deleted it..."

Here was the problematic paragraph that I deleted: "Shortly after the Kent State shootings, anti-war protesters announced that they would hold a rally near city hall to commemorate the four dead students. Brennan decided to organize a counter-rally of construction workers to show support for the Nixon administration.[3] A transcription made of a White House tape recording dated May 5, 1971,[6][7] documents that the planning phase of the riot took place in the White House Oval Office. Charles Colson is heard successfully instigating several New York State AFL-CIO union leaders into organizing the attack against the student protesters."

As I previously noted, this paragraph was spoiled with errors. After reading the new book about the Hard Hat Riot (Hardhat Riot by David Paul Kuhn), I was curious about the Wiki entry. This page has many, many factual errors. For example, there were over 100 injuries. The men sieged City Hall but never made it inside. A delegation was allowed in (it’s all in the book). The order of events is wrong, as is the events that led up to the riot, etcetera.

The serious error, though, is this conspiracy paragraph I deleted which was not supported by facts. The citations are flawed. Veteran editors can resolve all the other errors on this page. But this paragraph is very disappointing, in terms of how it made it into Wikipedia and remained here. The May 5, 1971, transcript was about events in 1971 (not the year earlier, 1970). There is no reference to planning for the Hard Hat Riot. See page 354 of the Hardhat Riot by Kuhn. The book references a mammoth amount of records when discussing this theory/conspiracy in this section and elsewhere. Some of it is available online, with a quick search. Using info from Kuhn’s Notes, I found the transcript from the Nixon library for May 5, 1971: https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/forresearchers/find/tapes/watergate/wspf/491-014.pdf And it only took me 5 minutes! I also found this based on his notes. I guess, when it first was made public, the NY Times also published some of the transcript in 1981: https://www.nytimes.com/1981/09/24/us/excerpts-from-white-house-tape-of-a-nixon-haldeman-talk-in-may-1971.html There is nothing about the Hard Hat Riot of May 8, 1970, in the May 5, 1971 transcript. There was some lazy reporting suppositions after this transcript made it public, it appears. But there is zilch about the Hard Hat Riot of the year prior, May 8, 1970, in the May 5, 1971 transcript. Kuhn explains how Nixon’s circle began to think of hardhats as his muscle after all the events of May 1970. The newspaper articles are either wrong or should not have been cited. The NY Times obit of Brennan made a similar mistake. I suggest whomever is editing the Wiki entry on the Hard Hat Riot read Kuhn’s book. I also am going to read other Wiki entries more closely. I hope unfounded conspiracies have not made it into other topics. It’s important Wiki remains a benchmark built on hard facts, IMHO. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.64.157.5 (talk) 17:47, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Kuhn, probably cited because he's the more recent author, may simply have lifted his info from Max Blumenthal's 2009 book, Republican Gomorrah. I've been trying to hunt down Blumenthal's rationale for making this connection, between two events a year apart. Other than the fact that both events were connected, by date, to the Kent State massacre (when it happened and the anniversary), and that the transcript can be read as a hint that Colson had utilized "hardhats and legionnaires" previously, I can't find any facts to back up either author's assertion. Blumenthal's reference in his book: https://books.google.com/books?id=GVLkZYIk6tMC&pg=PA69#v=onepage&q&f=false 2601:240:CB00:AAA0:ED50:B4D3:FF49:62B3 (talk) 23:38, 27 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Also, for some of the facts that need correcting, such as the number of injuries, see this Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/student-protesters-angry-construction-workers-and-a-violent-confrontation/2020/08/12/cd49a86c-a6aa-11ea-bb20-ebf0921f3bbd_story.html

Some of the correct info is in the Wall Street Journal article too, but the paywall might be an issue: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-hardhat-riots-review-what-the-riots-foretold-11593180161 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.64.157.5 (talk) 17:59, 27 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Unnecessary, one-sided, and misleading citation of demographics.

"The building and construction unions were overwhelmingly white, Catholic, blue-collar and male." The article fails to describe the race, religion, or sex of the anti-war group. And it was an anti-war vs anti-protest riot, so none of the listed demographics are germane. 76.88.119.11 (talk) 04:34, 5 November 2023 (UTC)[reply]