← Civics & Coffee: A History Podcast
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Welcome to Civics and Coffee, a history podcast. The show all about United States history delivered to you in the time it takes to enjoy your morning cup of coffee. I'm your host, Alicia, a historian trained in United States history with a passion for telling both the known and unknown parts of America's past. So grab your coffee and get ready for some bite sized history. Welcome back everyone.
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Every once in a while there is
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a book that hits you in your solar plexus and never lets up. This week's interview is one such book.
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Fear and Fury by Dr. Heather Ann
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Thompson is a riveting, heartbreaking, infuriating exploration of racialized violence, media manipulation and how politicians play on people's fears. It is masterfully written and I was honored to have a chance to sit down with Dr. Thompson and ask her all about the book and her process. I hope you all enjoy the conversation.
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B
Welcome everyone. Joining me today is Dr. Heather Ann Thompson. She is a historian and Pulitzer Prize and Bancroft Prize winning author who has written on the criminal justice system for multiple publications such as the Atlantic, the New York Times and Rolling Stone. Dr. Thompson also served as the historical consultant for the Academy Award winning documentary film Attica and is the co founder of History Studio, a boutique firm that helps bridge the Academy and the entertainment industry. Her latest book is fear and the Reagan 80s, the Bernadette's shootings and the Rebirth of White Rage and will be the focus of our conversation today. Welcome Dr. Thompson.
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C
So happy to be here.
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B
Thank you so much for coming on. Let us dive into this absolutely incredible book. For those who might not be familiar, what happened on that subway car in December 1984 and what motivated your research into the case and its impacts?
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C
Well, what happened on that subway was something that seems all too regular today, which is a pretty horrific incident of white racial rage. In this case of white guy gets on a New York City subway car headed downtown and on that train are four black teenagers and in a very, very short encounter between he and one of them, it ends up that the guy stands up kind of inexplicably to the passengers around him and even to the boys and he turns around and pulls out a.38 Smith Wesson, shoots the kid who had talked to him straight in the chest, shoots the kid behind him in his back as he's running away or trying to in the confines of this subway car and then shoots two or tries to shoot two of his friends slightly down the car. One of them he hits and the other one he misses and then he walks over to the Kid whose shot missed and says, you look all right, here's another, and proceeds to shoot him at point blank range in his side, which then severed his spinal cord and permanently rendered him paralyzed. And this particular case was so interesting to me, in part because I remembered it, which dates me, and I remember feeling that it was a departure moment, that something was really unhinged. No matter how gritty and dangerous feeling the 80s were, that something was kind of being unleashed here. And then, of course, fast forward to today, where these incidents of rage are all too common, from, you know, Kyle Rittenhouse gunning down protesters and, you know, to January 6th to Charlottesville to killing of George Floyd or Trayvon Martin. So I wanted to kind of go back and focus on a story to figure out, maybe hopefully figure out in part how we get where we are today.
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B
Yeah. And, you know, this is a story about a shooting, but it, it's kind of a story that serves as kind of a microcosm for issues facing the United States during the, the 1980s. So I kind of want to ask, you know, how does this story that's really based in, in New York kind of serve as that microcosm?
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C
Well, in some respects, you know, New York is a bellwether for the nation. Certainly New Yorkers, I'm, I'm living there now, so this, certainly New Yorkers feel that way, but it's actually true. And that's in no small part particularly today, because so many of the key figures that are running our political system today, from Trump to, to Rudy Giuliani to Rupert Murdoch, they're coming out of this particular city. And so, you know, this is also where the New York Times is located, so the paper of record. This is also where some of the first tabloids get started and where the New York Post, you know, will get its start, which will then become Fox News. So in so many ways, New York is the place to look, but that is not to suggest that New York is unique. And that's the power of this story, I think, because what is happening in New York is in fact happening in cities across the country. And so much so that it will not surprise any Americans when they read the story. The story will feel familiar no matter where you live.
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B
Well, Anne, you lay a bit of context for the readers before kind of diving into the details of the shooting and everything that follows. So can you share a bit about the Bronx's evolution during the post war years and why the Reagan presidential campaign kind of chose to highlight the neighborhood as this kind of picture of Poverty and failed policies.
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C
Yeah. And I think maybe first I just take one step back and say, you know, this shooting happens in 1984. And for those of us, it was certain generation, we remember the 80s really, really well as a time of real crisis in American cities. The crime rate felt really out of control. People were really suffering economically. Public sector jobs were disappearing. There was a really dramatic spike in the unhoused population. There is an AIDS crisis. There is a dawning crisis of the illegal drug trade. And in all of this, everything that is going on, you know, for Americans experiencing it, they have. You know, they don't. It's hard to get your head around what is exactly happening. And a key part of this story is to explain how what is happening is actually being created by a political turn, an economic turn this country took towards Reaganomics, towards austerity politics, but that it's being translated as the fault of the most marginalized citizens. Right. The reason why crime exists is because some people are just animals and thugs. The reason why some people are drug addicted is because they're morally weak. All that I'm describing plays out in all cities, but in, of course, the most marginalized neighborhoods like the South Bronx in. In the New York City area, it's really acute. And the four teenagers that this one white loner shoots all herald from the South Bronx. So this is a place that, you know, in the 50s, it had an extraordinary public housing stock that allowed countless white families to move in after the war and get their feet on the ground and eventually make enough money that they could get a nice FHA loan and move out to the suburbs and put their kids in college. That housing then became the place where so many black and brown Americans were living without any of those same resources being put into the neighborhood, the building, the school system. And so the South Bronx is really a great departure point to sort of say, wait a minute, you know, what is. What is all this trauma going on on the ground that is going to result in what is, in effect, just resentment and rage on the part of the shooter, but also will turn the victims of this shooting into the villains overnight.
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B
Yeah, well, and talking about some of the players of this story, let's. Let's dive into Bernard Goetz. Who was he, and why did he feel entitled to this idea of becoming a vigilante?
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C
Right, well, so the shooter's name is Bernard Goetz, and otherwise known in, you know, lyrics from, for example, Billy Joel or the Beastie Boys as Bernie Getz, kind of becomes this culture figure after the Shooting. And, you know, for a few days, people don't even know his name because he shoots these teenagers and then disappears into the subway system and he's on the run. And it's going to take a while before it becomes clear who he is. But who he was was a very disgruntled, I think, really troubled guy. And I'm going to say this with a, you know, a little bit of caveat. So, yes, very troubled. Had a very troubled youth. As you will see reading the book, I try to really take you his biography as well as that of the kids that he shot and, you know, terrible home life with a very, you know, authoritarian father, economically very stable, in fact, came from a house with quite a bit of wealth. But he's a loner. He can't really deal with other people. He lives on his own. He is self employed, living in Greenwich Village in New York City. But I don't want to suggest that this is a story of just some crazy person who goes on the subway and unleashes his rage, because in fact, what he's responding to is what many, many people were responding to, which is why he will become a hero of this story. So he steps out of his house and he, or his apartment, and he sees the homeless, he sees the, the drug addicted, he sees the trash piling up, he sees the chaos. And, and he is the perfect person to really understand how do so many white people in this country who are experiencing loss and deprivation in the Reagan 80s decide not that rich people are getting richer, which is in fact what's happening, not that public resources are drying up, which is in fact what was happening, but rather that it's down to the immoral and thuggery and criminalistic actions of black and brown, particularly youth. So he, he is this kind of archetype, or he's an everyman that we can focus on and not explain it away as he just had mental health issues.
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B
Yeah, well, and then on the flip side, right, you have the, the four young men who had the misfortune of being on the same subway car as, as Getz on that December day. So who were these, these young gentlemen and what were their backgrounds?
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C
Well, and I'm so honored, actually, to be able to tell that piece of the story, because to be really frank, I remembered Bernie Goetz, but I would have found it impossible to tell you the names of the four teenagers that he had shot. And that is because at the time they were weirdly erased and also held up as archetypical villains at the same time. But either way, we didn't know their names. We didn't know their stories. We didn't know who they were. And I tell you about all of them. The kid that was shot in the chest was Troy Canty. He was friends with the other kid who shot in the back, running away, Barry Allen. And they were friends with James Ramsor, who was shot in the arm, and it went through. Through his lungs. And then their fourth friend was Darryl Cabey. And the book mostly focuses on Darryl because he's the one that's paralyzed. And so I tell their stories, gets the story and Darryl's story kind of in tandem throughout the book because, you know, Daryl ends up in the projects of the South Bronx because of his own traumatic childhood. In this case, a very loving home. His mom and dad, you know, seem to have a very good relationship. He has three siblings, and his dad is tragically killed while someone's trying to steal his dad's truck that he needs to make a living. And he gets crushed trying to essentially save his livelihood, save this vehicle. So they end up in public housing because of a trauma, which is, of course, the whole point of the social safety net, right? That. That sometimes we lose our jobs, or sometimes we are born with a disability, or sometimes we have a traumatic life circumstance that requires a moment for us to get ourselves back on our feet again. And that's how they end up in public housing. But the public housing they move into is being eroded. There's no jobs. There is. He's got a learning disability. There are few resources to deal with a kid like him. And so he and his friends have very little hope, not a great deal of optimism for the future. And they are on the train that day because they want to go down to a video arcade to jimmy it open with these screwdrivers they have in their pockets zipped up so that they can get quarters out of these coin receptacles to have a little bit of money. And they come to Getz's attention because Troy Canty, you know, sees them. He says, hey. You know, get says hey back. And he says, hey, you got five? You got five bucks? Which in the 80s New York is so common, panhandling. I mean, you could not walk down the street anywhere without someone saying, do you have a few bucks? You got five bucks? You got a few dollars? You got a few quarters? So in a very ordinary interaction will become extraordinary. And he, Getz, will be dubbed the Death Wish vigilante, the Charles Bronson, the Clint Eastwood of that era. Who did what countless disaffected, economically insecure fellow whites in New York really wished that they would have had the guts to do? And so then the story is kind of off to the races. That takes us through two trials, you know, really incredible human stories that. That. That lay the groundwork for today.
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B
Well, and. And we've kind of touched on this in. In prior questions, but I'm curious as to kind of how did the New York media influence the public after the shooting?
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C
Well, this was, to me, one of the most interesting parts of the story, because I'm sure that I, like many of your listeners, periodically will, you know, go on the news today and think, good Lord, like, how did we get to a point where we're saying that up is down and down is up, and this is true when it's clearly not true? And. And it turns out that this moment in the early 80s is a critical, critical departure point for that, because right as Reagan is kind of shifting the economic landscape and the political landscape, he needs an ability to kind of translate that on the ground in a way that people will kind of make sense of and. And, you know, not rebel against the people gutting all the public resources. And it turns out that they have an ally and perhaps an unexpected ally, but that ally is a guy named Rupert Murdoch, who is an Australian media magnate who comes to New York with the intention of dominating the US Media market one day and to really saturate that media market with conservative ideas about governance and culture and morality and all of those things. And so he buys the New York Post, which is one of the two main tabloids in New York City. And the Getz case, as I've said before, it's like Christmas come early because it allows him to use this case and then subsequent cases that will follow to sort of say, look, you know, New York is a cesspool. Stop funding liberal programs that. Blaming the liberal programs for the cesspool, elevating Getz is the hero. Using columns to revile dependency and criminality without context. And pretty soon, the competitor paper, the Daily News, which had been quite liberal prior and by the way, so at the Post, has to keep up. You know, it's got to be more and more sensational. It's got to be more and more dramatic. They're right there in the thick of things, you know, celebrating Getz, reviling the victims. And even the mainstream press is sort of shaped by this to start focusing on crime without context, dependency, without any details. And so it turns out that Rupert Murdoch, who's going to build his US Presence with papers like the New York Post and he has others in other cities that will allow him to then have Fox News. And again, you know, New York is the epicenter of this story.
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B
Yeah. And you, you talk about how he really takes the story and he, and he kind of creates this echo, this ecosystem, excuse me, and then really expands on it throughout the years. This story kind of starts in the 80s. He gets his feet wet, so to speak, and then just continues to build upon this, this empire that, that kind of gets to the, the Fox News and, and really takes a bite out of the media landscape.
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C
Well, and meanwhile, I think it's important to note meanwhile that he's doing something else, which is selling richness, selling the idea that greed is good, selling the idea that, you know, if everyone just worked hard enough, they too could be Donald Trump, they too could be building these fabulous buildings in New York City. They became pages that not only celebrated men like Getz, they also celebrated men like Trump. Right. And so think about the, you know, popular culture landscape. We had on the one hand, vigilante movies making a huge splash and television shows, but we also had shows like Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or Dallas or Dynasty or Knott's Landing, which all suggested that, you know, if you're, if you're failing, if, if you can't pay your rent, that's because something's wrong with you, not something is wrong with the opportunity structure in this country. And so the kind of incredible through line to the present when, again, I won't give it all away. But, you know, fast forward to when Trump really is able to run for president and make a real inroads in public opinion. He needs Fox. He is there like 200 times. And misinformation will become the currency that has really, you know, tipped the scales politically.
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B
Yeah, well, and then an organization that I don't think anybody will be surprised to find in this book is the National Rifle association or the nra. So how does the story, this case kind of transform the National Rifle Association?
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C
Yeah, well, I, I, I will say, first of all, again, surprise. You know, I'm a historian. I'm always amazed at what still surprises me. But in our current culture, you know, the Second Amendment, guns, guns, guns, guns, guns is just kind of part of the air we breathe. You know, Gen Z has been inundated with the stories of shooting, shooting, shootings, but also the message that, well, however bad it is, Americans have a right to defend themselves and to carry a gun. And they always evoke the Constitution, which of course, course there is a constitutional amendment about the right to bear arms. But it turns out that in 1984, the NRA was mostly known for guns, frankly, were mostly known for things like hunting and sportsmanship. And they tended to be a cultural part of only certain parts of the country. So, for example, very heavy in the south where people did a lot of hunting. And also out west and in the Northeast, it again tended to be more like the sportsman, unless in some, of course, some hunting in rural areas, but also a lot of, you know, sportsman's clubs and shooting, you know, as sport. But the Bernie Getz case happens and the NRA says this is a moment and not only puts money into his legal defense, it'll take two grand juries to even get him to trial. But when he goes to trial, and after an extraordinary trial in which Getz is acquitted on charges of attempted murder and assault, the NRA says this is the green light. And they will then put even more resources into their political action committee funding. They will really move the needle legally. And so what do we get? We get stand your ground laws across the country that will make it public, possible for George Zimmerman to kill Trayvon Martin. It leads to important Supreme Court cases that will make it easier for police officers and now ICE to make the snap decision to kill a civilian rather than arrest them if they feel threatened. So it turns out that this case is also really essential to understanding the moment that we now are in which everybody thinks that self protection is the God given right, not the right to bear arms. And there, there is a difference. Yeah.
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B
Well, and speaking of the verdict, I have kind of a two parter for you on the verdict. So what did the verdict kind of expose, especially the criminal case expose about America's ongoing issue with race. I mean, we've, we've kind of started touching on it, but then also I think it's something that you explore, I think so beautifully in the book. How did this verdict kind of impact the four young men who were victimized by Getz?
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C
Yes. Well, I will invite anyone who's interested in this book to read, particularly the trial section, because it is just, it's extraordinary. I mean, I imagine a trial like that is before, you know, before the, the televised trials, like the OJ Trial, before this moment. Imagine that kind of a trial. And you've got some of the flashiest figures. Bertie Getz is defended by this incredibly flashy mob lawyer by the name of Barry Slotnick. You've got jurors who are they land on the jury. But half of them have, more than half have actually been a victim of a mugging. And at least half of those have had a subway crime happen to them. And I mean, day by day, the things that are allowed to happen in this trial are shocking. Nevertheless, before he goes to trial, Bernie Guest has admitted to literally everything he did in a two hour confession. So it's videotaped. So I'm kind of like planting some seeds here of stuff that's going to be very familiar to people video. So you see with your own eyes what really happened. A legal proceeding where all the information that's being laid out for people should lead to a very specific conclusion, which is guilty. And yet that's not what happens. So it turns out that he will only be found guilty of carrying an illegal weapon. He will not be found guilty of gunning down these four teenagers, attempting to murder them. Even when he says, if I would have had more bullets, I would have shot them again and again, I would have, I. My intention was to kill them all. He's really, really clear. And of course, Daryl kb, who he paralyzes, not only had they not ever spoken to each other, but he admits that he targeted him a second time. So this case is one again where we just kind of have to spend some time with it to kind of see how did that happen? How did, you know, blue become red and red become blue. Like, what is going on here. But the human part of it, as you suggest, is the story of these teenagers. They were destroyed by that one day on this train. They were physically injured, you know, harmed in, in a, you know, kind of catastrophic way. They were not killed, but their lives were destroyed. And the real kind of heroine of this story is Daryl Cabey's mother, because she kind of refuses to let these kids, and her son in particular, be villainized. And so there's a kind of a other story brewing here, which is that she will really fight for justice for her son. That will result in another trial towards the end of the book, which is a civil case against Bernie Goetz. So no less outrage producing because he gets to defend himself, so he gets to depose the kid he shot. And, you know, no less, no less, full of both possibility, but also disappointment. And it kind of just again parallels where we are today so often, for example, with like Minneapolis, where we see with our own eyes what happens when someone gets shot 10 times without threatening someone. We are told something very different happened. And while it remains to be seen what happens with this legally, the precedent has already been set that these ICE officers will not be found guilty. Yeah, well.
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B
And you talk about how the shootings unleashed and normalized a new era of racialized rage. So can you expand on this and. And how it manifested in New York?
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C
Well, I think what it did across the country, but New York was ground zero for it. Is it. It not even subtly made clear that if you see, if you are white, let's be very clear if you are white, because this did not apply to people of color. If you are white and you feel threatened merely by the presence of a black or brown American, and you can at all justify that fear, but the bar is very low. You can end their life. And is that new in American history? No, there's always been a long history of white racial rage and violence. So that's not new. But what is new is the normalization and the legalization of. Takes us back in history, really, to the 19th century, in the era of lynching, when you could, as a white person, if someone offended you or threatened you or simply existed next to you, you didn't have to rely on authorities to deal with the matter. You could deal with the matter yourself. And so it was a return to the Jim Crow era that we were experiencing, and not coincidentally, a re. Embrace of the Gilded age of the 19th century, where wealthy people were unregulated, could make as much money as they wanted to, and really had all the power in society. So what I didn't fully appreciate till I did this book was that these things went hand in hand. They were really flip sides of the same coin. Right. You allow you stoke white rage in order to do really what you want to do, which is just amass wealth and power. And that it took work. It took decades of work to normalize this, to create a society that we have right now, where we are again, you know, in one of the most unequal economic societies in any Western democracy, with some of the highest levels of not just gun violence, but specifically racialized rage. And the reason we knew that the Getz case was really triggering this was on the heels of that came several really powerful episodes of white rage. One of them was a white teen mob killing in Queens. There was, we know this is Howard, the Howard beach mob killing, and then Bensonhurst. But we also remember the Central Park Five who would become the exonerated five. But it would take decades to free them again. Young black teenagers who were just assumed to be perpetrators of a horrific rape, who got no fair process with the police or the courts. And that was unfortunately playing out in Detroit, where I grew up. It was playing out in California. And it would make later events like the Rodney King beatings. It would make later events like the Kyle Rittenhouse shootings. You know, there was no longer any pretense, really, that the rule of law mattered and that what you saw with your eyes, you could trust.
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B
Yeah, well, and, you know, we've been kind of talking about this throughout the entire conversation, so. But I do want to give you a chance to kind of expand if you want to. You bring the history of that gets trial to the present. And I think you, you bring it in such a clear way. And so I just want to say, you know, how does this story really help us understand our current moment and where we're at in with racialized violence?
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C
Well, I think that there will be so many moments for readers where you're just like, wait a minute, or what, 1980. I thought we, you know, are you sure this isn't 2024? So that the parallels between past and present will be pretty clear and obvious. But what I hope that people will see is again, how long it actually took to normalize this and how much effort it took to persuade ordinary people that it was sufficient for them to be filled with rage and to be allowed to act on that rage, that that was, you know, enough in society for them. Because, in fact, meanwhile, that rage was not putting food on their table. It was not allowing them to send their own kids to college. It was not making their neighborhoods safer. It wasn't, in fact, doing anything that they really needed. And so what I hope is that by kind of unpacking how we got to Fox and how we got to Trump and how we got to the NRA today and all of that, that we understand that the biggest victims of this, of course, they were Troy Canty, Barry Allen, James Ramsor, and Darryl Cabey. But it was actually everybody who was not in the top 1% because nobody got anything out of this. And so we look today and it nobody can afford to pay rent on a minimum wage job. Nobody can not go into debt simply trying to raise a family. Nobody can afford college. Nobody can really count anymore on the, you know, FDA to provide, you know, whatever safe food or to, you know, the give us guidance on vaccines or anything else, because everything has become so distorted. But meanwhile, of course, the rich are getting richer and richer and richer, and that's what they care about. So I hope it just kind of lifts the veil a little bit that Trump, I mean, we Could Trump could be gone tomorrow. But you'll see in this book that every party played a part in this and that if we don't deal with the bigger issue, which is income inequality and race baiting, we won't fix this. So I think it's a wake up call, but it's also a connect the dots kind of book. And it's a story that, you know, it's a. I feel like it's a really beautiful story about a mother and a son, too, who are trying to turn this thing around with no power at all.
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B
Yeah, the Darryl Cabey, the story. Oh, God, my heart broke for him. I just. Again, I closed the book and I said, I hope he's okay. I hope his sister. He has a sister.
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C
Correct.
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B
If I'm remembering correctly. I hope his sister's able to take care of him and that he's living somewhat comfortably in the midst of everything.
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C
Yeah, I mean, you know, Bernie Getz still lives in Greenwich Village in the same apartment that he lived in, you know, back in 1984. And Darryl Cabey is still alive, but. But, you know, paralyzed and brain damaged. So this story is. Connects past to present, literally. Not even just kind of in a macro sense or in a history argument sense. I mean, you know, it's a living. It's a living history.
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B
Yeah, definitely. Well, and then is there anything that we haven't covered that you want future readers to know?
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C
I don't think so. I mean, I. I just really invite folks to read it in part because as depressing as so much of this is, I guess what I would also say is that it, I think. I mean, you'll have to tell me, but I think that there are seeds in here of hope in the sense that, you know, this is new, it's relatively new. And while we've been here before, there was a whole lot of time in American history when we weren't here. And so embedded in this story is kind of the cues, the clues, the germ of how do we kind of wake up, smell the coffee, see what's really going on and turn it around so, as I say at the end of the book, so that we can imagine a future for everybody's children, not just for children whose parents can afford private school and can afford to live in a gated community and can afford the niceties of things like Kaplan and SAT Prep and like, for everybody's children. And I think there are the seeds of that in there, or at least I invite people to look for those.
- [37:05]
B
Definitely. And before I let you go. Where should people go when they finish this book and they want to learn more about you and the amazing work that you do? Because I did not have the chance to read all of your amazing credentials at the top of the episode.
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C
Well, I'm easy to find@heatherantompson.com so easy to find me there or on Instagram as historian Heather and would love to always. I always enjoy hearing from anybody who's had the opportunity to read it. Tell me what you think.
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B
Wonderful. All right. So to the listeners out there, this is 100% required reading for 2026. Fear and fury is a tough but necessary exploration of race and provides keen insight on the politics of white Ra age. It is a critical piece of scholarship to understanding our current moment and is masterfully written. Thank you again Dr. Thompson.
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C
Thank you so much.
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A
My thanks again to Dr. Thompson for sharing her scholarship with me.
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B
If you want a copy of this amazing book, head on over to my
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A
affiliate shop on bookshop.org I have included a link to it in the show notes for the episode.
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B
Thanks peeps.
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A
I'll see you next time. Thanks for sitting down with me as I explored this chapter of American history. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe and share with your friends. I look forward to our next cup of coffee together.