The Didact recently brought up yet another recent case of “flash mob” violence where the article is strangely…. quiet… about describing the perpetrators.
Short version, 50 or so “youths” were arrested , with hundreds running around in groups from 20 to 50, ganging up on and beating up people in northern Philadelphia over the course of an evening. Just from the headline alone one would guess, based on who actually does these kind of things, as to the cultural or ethnic background of the perpetrators.
And as he points out, amazingly, somehow, it’s never mentioned.
I’ve cut down on listening to Colin Flaherty anywhere near as much, not because he’s wrong, but because though the names change from week to week of the victims and the perpetrators, the stories remain, sadly, year after year, the same. Frankly, if you haven’t read at least one of his two books on the subject, White Girl Bleed a Lot, or *Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry *– both based on actual quotes by people using or excusing violence, then do so, or dig through several months of the podcast.
Remember when I said that “three times is enemy action” means that there is a systemic problem? It could of course be a campaign of lies as the Trump-directed allegations of sexual impropriety, but it nevertheless means something is systemically wrong.
Colin mercilessly documents case, after case, after case, and the relevant statistics of crime vs population, of degrees of behavior. He darkly jokes that when people tell him “white people do it too” he’ll challenge them to post articles of the same behavior by whites, and then when they run out keep posting. “White people do it too” – yet in white neighborhoods people are less cautious, take fewer steps to secure their valuables, because empirical experience shows that their stuff is far less likely to get stolen there.
Even Jesse Jackson would rather be followed by a crowd of rowdy white teens than black ones.
Also worth looking at is an Eric Raymond posting, *Press silence, black privilege, and unintended consequences. *Especially relevant line:
I’m here to say what that article could have but did not: suppressio veri, when performed systematically enough, itself becomes a code that can be read. What the press is teaching Americans to assume, story after story, is that if “youths” commit public violence and they are not specified to be white, or hispanic, or asian — then it’s yet another black street gang on a wilding.
The article and its comments are worth a read.
