Thank God for YouTube. It is there we can watch the Superintendent of Police in Chicago appearing in the church of race-baiter Father Pfleger, blaming Sarah Palin and institutional racism for black violence in America.
At least he talked about race.
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Chicago Superintendent McCarthy
TIRED SOLUTIONS AND BLAME SHIFTING
Without YouTube, we would not have heard from Bobby Rush, the Chicago congressman with the distinction of being the only person to ever defeat Barack Obama in an election, and a onetime big dog in the Black Panthers. Rush put together a meeting to talk about crime. And of course they trotted out all the usual solutions: More jobs, more gyms, and more free stuff. If there is any place where they have tried these solutions nonstop for fifty years, it is Chicago. Even so, they pressed on undeterred for more, more, more of the same.
Rush said flash mobs have existed in Chicago for as long as he can remember. The only reason people are paying attention now is the criminals have left the ghetto for greener pastures.
“You know as well as I—shootings, killings, and flash mobs,” Rush said. “This is a new one now. Flash mobs, pepper spray assaults by young men have dominated this weekend’s news. I’m disturbed because it happens on the South Side on a regular basis. It seems as though when it happens on the North Side, then it’s newsworthy.23
I actually did not know that. Turns out everyone knew about the mob activity on the South Side except me. On June 8, 2011, black columnist Stella Foster let the cat out of the bag:
I heard from a reader who informed this columnist that the flash mob incidents have been going on for the longest time on the South Side with virtually no media mentions nor any real action on the part of our Chicago Police Department. The reader told me that certain drugstores and supermarkets have been attacked by groups of young males, who would congregate in the parking lots of these businesses, walk into the stores, take what they wanted and then boldly walk out and jump on bikes for their getaway. When the reader asked why the store employees didn’t call the police, the response was, “We stop calling the police because it happens so frequently that the police stop responding.”
I know this is a big challenge for the Chicago Police Department, but more policemen will have to spread out and be more visible in patrolling the city, not just the Gold Coast and the Loop areas. And I am sure Mayor Rahm Emanuel will not play games with these thugs. And remember, decent law-abiding African Americans are victims, too.24
If you ever wondered where these crazy kids could ever get the idea that flash mobbing has no consequences, look no further than the South Side. Stella went on to say that we should be calling them “flash thugs” because flash mobs are “supposed to start dancing.”
In June 2012 it started up again. Black mobs were under investigation in at least five violent incidents in downtown Chicago in a two-week period. According to the award-winning police blog Second City Cop, there may be twenty-five more incidents of mob violence and lawlessness that weekend alone that were never reported.25
On June 9, 2012, shortly after the Chicago Blues Festival ended at 9:30 p.m., a mob attacked an out-of-town visitor and left him with a broken jaw. “Seven juveniles ranging in age from 13 to 16, were charged with felony mob action … in connection with an attack in downtown Chicago.”26
Thirty minutes later, another mob in a nearby subway attacked a man trying to protect his wife from theft and assault. The Chicago Tribune reported that the police said “the woman dropped her iPhone and one of the teens picked it up. The husband told the teen to give it back and the group attacked him, pushing him to the ground and punching and kicking him.”27 The paper published pictures of the assailants. All of them were black and none of them have been arrested or identified.
The next night, June 10, a doctor at Chicago’s Northwestern hospital was beaten by a mob. It was the second attack on a doctor in that area in ten days. All the suspects were black, though the victim told the Chicago Tribune race had nothing to do with it.28
I only wish my doctor were a mind reader as well.
The Chicago New Report provides details_of similar assaults for the following weekend:
Saturday, Chicago police officers were kept busy trying to control huge crowds of unruly, young African Americans in the city’s increasingly violent downtown area. Separate groups, of nearly two hundred people, were responsible for several disturbances and at least one robbery in the area.29
The beat reporters are not connecting the dots, and three Chicago columnists are doing everything they can to deny the dots even exist. In June 2011 Tribune columnist Mary Schmich, recounting the black mob violence at the time, said “there’s another fact that you also know, but it’s one you haven’t read in the Tribune or seen explicitly stated by most of the official media: The young men were black.” Which, of course, has nothing to do with anything, she said. And besides, she and her friends worry how reporting the race of the criminals “will reflect on all the good black kids.”30
A steady stream of headlines tell the rest of the story:
Random attacks cause concern in Chicago - Chicago Tribune
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy vows to hunt down ‘flash mob’ suspects - Chicago Sun-Times
Officials: Flash Mobs Already Plague South Side – CBS Chicago
Four robbed, attacked by mob of young men in Streeterville – Chicago Sun-Times
Teen mobs suspected in downtown assaults – Chicago Tribune
Boy mugged by group of teens near Ogilvie Transportation Center – Chicago Sun-Times
The list goes on and on. So does the list of universities, sports teams, retail associations, hospitals, and others that have warned their employees and customers that downtown Chicago is now a dangerous place.
Columnist Mary Mitchell grudgingly acknowledges all the mob attackers are black. Mitchell doesn’t much like that, but she insists race has nothing to do with it. She says the attackers are from the suburbs, so don’t blame Chicago. Yet she openly worries that her grandchild goes to school with too many white children.31
While city officials and the Chicago media stumble over each other to deny the racial violence, at least one black Chicago alderman figures if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. In June, Alderman Anthony Beale said if METRA, the city transit agency, does not hire more minorities, “people are going to get hurt.” Even the Sun-Times could not ignore that: The headline said: “Beale predicts violence if METRA doesn’t hire more minorities for rail project.”32
A few days later, on July 5, people were enjoying the July 4th fireworks celebration when suddenly they were set upon by a mob of dozens of black people intent on violence. One man was taken to the hospital, but was in good condition. Eleven black people were arrested and charged with assault.33
Police blamed the problems on teens without parents. As usual, the media did not report that the mob was black.
Local television reporters did remind people that it was the latest in a series of mob attacks in the downtown and upscale North Side area.
Two days later, talking about the fireworks mob, the CBS Chicago affiliate reported that “Sources told CBS 2’s Suzanne Le Mignot that 17 other people were arrested overnight for other mob attacks across the city.”34
On July 6 Chicago police issued a warning to tourists and locals about the violence taking place downtown … by black people.
One year after the first edition of this book, and the police superintendent is at it again. This time, during a panel discussion on WCGI-FM radio in June 2012, he addressed the crowd and said he knew police had done a lot of “wrong.” He then blamed the “pilgrims” for the plight of African Americans, or something like that. If you can figure out what he is saying, let me know.
In November 2011 six black men kidnapped and raped a fourteen-year-old girl on her way to school. No Pilgrims are under investigation at this time. “Police said the assault happened a day before a separate assault on
a 14-year-old girl, this time near President Barack Obama’s house in Hyde Park.”35
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: It’s the Pilgrims Fault
The crime happened two blocks away from the home of the President of the United States—an area where crime is rarely reported.
“If something happens near Obama’s home, we rarely report,” said a member of the Chicago Police Department who patrols in that area. “We usually just call it vandalism. That is the way they want it.”
This Chicago cop seems to feel if he let me print his name he would get fired. Crazy huh?
When I visit Chicago they take me around town. They seem to think I need protection. Let’s see how I did at WVON, Chicago’s largest black radio station.
9
CHICAGO: THE SEQUEL
How to Get Kicked Off a Black Radio Station
How do you get kicked off the air at a black talk radio station?
Just follow these directions.
Step One: write a book about race.
Step Two: write an article for World Net Daily about how Chicago is Ground Zero for this new epidemic of racial crime and violence.1
Document it with lots of links—especially to YouTube. Leave out the explanations, solutions and apologies. (The book is for people who simply deny these crimes take place, so explanations are not much good for people who don’t believe the problem exists in the first place. A lot do not.) I tried the “solution game” once. “Stop rioting?” I proffered. No one liked that.
Step Three: Send the story to the largest black talk station in Chicago. Would I be available to talk about the World Net Daily story on The Perri Small Show on WVON in Chicago?
Sure.
Soon after the show started, it was clear Perri had not read the WND article, which is understandable. Ninety-nine out of a hundred conversations in the media about race go through the same kabuki: Ignore the victims. Humanize the thugs. When it is over, congratulate each other for superior moral sensitivity.
But this conversation was part of the 1 percent, so I started in: “There are large groups of black people going through the streets of downtown and other parts of Chicago doing some really horrific things. Even crazier, reporters and newspapers ignore it. It has happened hundreds of times all over the country. And a lot of it is on YouTube. So it is hard to deny.”2
Perri tried to change the subject—first to me and my motives for writing it. Then to long exasperated explanations about why those criminals were creating dangerous mayhem.
I didn’t go there. Instead I played the Dr. Phil card. Liberals have been justifying this horrific behavior for fifty years. “How is that working out for you?”
Crickets.
I’ve been writing and reporting about race since the 1980s. First as a staffer for a Republican Hispanic elected official. Then as a ghost writer for the first black chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. Later as a reporter, when I wrote several stories on fake hate crimes. I wrote a story that got a black man out of prison. That was a big deal on Court TV.
Because I know how treacherous this ground can be, my rules are simple. As I mentioned in the introduction, there are no generalizations, no stereotypes, no apologies. Just the facts, ma’am.
That way, there are no land mines.
Perri got frustrated when I refused to join her “grad student sociology seminar with pizza on the floor” discussion. She turned up the heat, saying she finally figured out I was some kind of … She searched for something really, really bad to call me. Then she found it. She figured out I was some kind of … conservative.
Reading from_the article, she quoted her favorite Chicago journalist, Ravi Baichwalan, a news reader at the local ABC affiliate. He said anyone who thought race was important in any way was an “idiot.” Of course Baichwalan wasn’t counting all the stories his station has done about the black caucus, black teachers association, black schools, black scholarships, and the like—stories, I must point out, that were sometimes written by members of the National Association of Black Journalists. Instead Baichwalan was talking about your humble correspondent. No big deal. He never got around to refuting my facts either. Other than to say he did not like them very much, or me for pointing them out.
Finally we arrive at the final step in Colin Flaherty’s sure-fire method of getting kicked off the air at one of America’s biggest black talk radio stations.
Step Three: Insist on the facts.
Liberals try to ignore the facts all the time. And then in the same breath, after they realize ignoring the facts is futile, they defend what happened. Perri echoed a caller who, following the Million Man March in 1995, said that white people should not be surprised if black people turn to “violence.” She said it wasn’t a race war but then defended it as though it were:
If the reason you wrote this article is to say the black people are ready to start a race war against white people, that is not true. The only reason they think that is because of all the damn dirt white people have done to them.
Which was echoing what a previous caller said.
It’s the same semantic gymnastics all the time. “The riots are not happening. But here is why they are happening.” Or in this case why they should happen.
Perri plowed ahead. “Ravi Baichwalan is very beloved,” Perri said. “He’s on the number one station. You called him an idiot.”
Oh jeez! He thinks he is Deepak Chopra. She thinks he is Jesus Christ. And I think he is a clown. I knew this wouldn’t end well. “I didn’t call him an idiot. I called him a clown. He called me an idiot. Can we at least get our facts straight?”
I only thought he was an idiot. But that didn’t matter. I had crossed the line. Soon she was bragging to her Chicago audience about how she hung up on me because I was rude and “I would never get it” and she “was not going to put up with (my) madness.”
Told you it was easy.
10
CONFESSIONS FROM A NETWORK NEWS DESK
MSNBC’s Golden Girl Answers the Question:
If this is happening, why haven’t I heard about it?
If someone sees a black person committing a crime, should they report it if it makes black people look bad?
Should Muslims cover up wife beating, genital mutilation, and childhood sexual abuse in their community just because saying something gives ammo to the Islamophobes?
These are seemingly simple questions, but they were difficult for MSNBC’s new golden girl, the host of the Melissa Harris-Perry Show. At least they were when Mona Eltahawy appeared to talk about her cover story in Foreign Policy magazine on misogyny in the Arab and Muslim world. Eltahawy had her arms broken in a demonstration and was tortured and raped in an Egyptian jail cell. So she seemed a bit surprised to find someone questioning her right to draw attention to these atrocities. Maybe because she thought she was in a news studio. Harris-Perry cleared that up right away:
I start with a little bit of trepidation in this conversation, in part because I know some of the critiques of this,” said Harris-Perry. “The very idea that Western press, those that are not from these nations, who are not Muslim ourselves, who are not part of these traditions—1
It is worth interrupting here to note that the “traditions” that Harris-Perry was referring to were involuntary female circumcision, wife beating, and childhood sexual abuse. At least those are the only three Eltahawy had time to mention. Back to Harris-Perry:
—[people] can look at your article and say “Ahhh, look at how horrible those men, or those societies, or that religion is.” And that is part of the reason why, for example, we have an underreporting of rape and domestic violence in African American communities. Because we know the violence enacted on black men by police, so we often don’t call. Right?”2
Eltahawy was bobbing her head in sympathy, though it was news to at least one viewer—not just that rape was underreported, but that Harris-Perry ever had any doubt about anything.
Then Harris-Perry brought in the
big gun: Harvard Professor Leila Ahmed. Professor Ahmed questioned whether Eltahawy should have written the article at all. Not because it was false, but because it was true. It just made Muslims look bad. Obviously, Professor Ahmed was familiar with NBC’s guidelines for what makes news.
“You began, Melissa, by noting that some things in the African American community are not publicized precisely because of the racism,” said Dr. Ahmed as Harris-Perry nodded in agreement on the split screen. “Mona, I appreciate what you do,” continued Ahmed. “I would love it if—I understand if you want to get your message across. It’s an important message. But if possible [you should not] give fuel, fodder to people who simply hate Arabs and Muslims in this climate of our day.”
Eltahawy seemed taken aback.
“That’s the whole point,” she said. “It’s not me that makes Muslims look bad. It’s those atrocities that make Muslims look bad. And as a writer, it’s my job to poke the painful places.”
It is not all that often that reporters and professors gather on a nationally televised news program to talk about withholding news stories if it makes their favorite ethnic or racial or religious group “look bad.”3
They usually do that over dinner at MoveOn.org conventions.
I emailed Harris-Perry and asked if she ever refused to report a violent crime because it would make someone look bad. And if so, wouldn’t that make her an accessory? I asked the other two guests as well. I’m still waiting for a reply.
A version of this chapter appeared in World Net Daily. One of my readers sent it to Jennifer Pozner, the director of Women in Media & News, which of course is WIMN.
I happened to see that episode of the Melissa Harris-Perry Show, and I can tell you the discussion was nuanced, challenging, and not at all as represented below in the article you forwarded.
I am wondering what you hoped the result would be of forwarding this email to me? As a media critic, did you think I wouldn’t have a critique of Mr.Flaherty’s attempt at sensationalism and fear-mongering?
White Girl Bleed A Lot Page 10