There has been lots of talk about how Twitter is used to organize “flash mobs.” Or to stay away. But few newspapers or blogs have actually reproduced some of the Tweets before, during, and after the race riot. But that is what Unamused Park, the online encyclopedia of race relations, did at the Coventry Streets Arts Fair in Cleveland Heights, Ohio on June 25, 2011.
If you want to capture your own Twitter streams, start a Twitter account (it’s free) and download TweetDeck (at tweetdeck.com). Add a column based on your select word or phrase: riot or Imma start a riot. Sometimes the talk is about getting new music or a party. Sometimes the talk is about real live riots with real live violence. Check it out.
Without further ado, from Unamused Park:
I wanna go to coventry but NIGGAS black ass NIGGAS on that embarrassing ghetto dont know how to act, dont got no home training type shit.
“NIGGAS,” she says, “black ass NIGGAS.” Could be a coincidence. Interestingly enough, her message was promptly retweeted by three other people: @_SammiJay, @Bj_Mariee, and @apryl_alone, who all happen to be African-American, as well.
At 7:51 pm, @Look_ItsTreMilz promised the following, which was re-tweeted by uniquebre17:
Everybody is gonna be at Coventry tomorrow huh?…. You wont see my black ass up there.
“Everybody” is going to be there — except their “black [asses].” Yes, once again, both happen to be African-American. Actually, from now on, everyone mentioned is African-American unless I specifically state otherwise.
At 10:09 pm, @My_FreshAss issued the following stern directive, re-tweeted by IAm_Dnell and CheeksONTresure (all of whom, if you’ve been paying attention, are implicitly African-American):
Coventry gone [going to] be full of FIGHTS, RIOTS, BLACK PEOPLE, DRUGS, ND ——>POLICE SOOOOOO YALL BETTA ACT CIVILIZED!!!
Fascinating: “Coventry,” he noted, is going to be “full of FIGHTS, RIOTS, BLACK PEOPLE, DRUGS,” and that implies a “POLICE” presence, so “YALL BETTA ACT CIVILIZED!!!” But did they heed his warning?
At 11:01 pm, @JaeCudi joked with @JovTheGreat:
I thought they stopped black people from hanging on Coventry. @Lol. JK
At 11:37 pm, masonry fan @SaleBrixSckTits speculated:
Coventry gone [going to] pull out them pattywagons again on you black fuckers lol
At 11:42 pm, the hypothermic @DaniDhaColdest wondered (as did re-tweeter @JustFollowHere):
Man why tf [the fuck] y’all gotta always wanna fight &nd start problems on coventry, that’s why BLACK PPL not wanted in a lot of places now GROWUP.
At 12:31 am, which I’m going to go ahead and call Saturday night, @LilRedHead_Jada pleaded, along with @DeonteeW-asThere, @_BlowTrees, and @Bobby_SickKicks:
Dear Black, Please Don’t Fight On Coventry Like Some Dumbasses ^_^ Love, Jada .…
SUNDAY: FLASH MOB
At 8:32 am on Sunday (the day of the “unrest”), @MauriceAmir vowed:
Im Not Going To The Coventry Feat. Black People Always Make Some Shit Ghetto Af. Plus I Gotta Work :)
At 9:18 am, the possibly self-hating @quezzy_quell discriminated:
If I go to coventry I’m goin early so I dnt have to put up wit black ppl…
At 10:55 am, the celestial @PaintTheCosmos (real name “Dionna Sherice,” race technically unknown) cursed:
Did want to go to Coventry, but black people like to fuck shit up.
At 11:24 am, the educated @HoesTaughtMe (reinforced by the equally learned @ToneJetTaughtMe) ordered:
NO SHOOTING, Coventry The Last Place Black People Got!
At 11:27 am, the similarly erudite @_TONYtaughtme (supported by @Drea_CreatedYou) equated:
coventry = fighting . yu cant put a bunch of black people in one area cuz they dk [don’t know] how to act .
At 11:41 am, @Pauly_Frm_Phs predicted:
Today gone [going to] be black tennagers last time on Coventry
@Weedy_TheOG and @PeeGee_17 concurred.
At 12:06 pm, @iStriptor_Nike prayed:
Dear lord, don’t let these black rambunctious kids ruin the Coventry fest this time … Sincerely, Kasey Moreland
At 12:22 pm, @Lanky_Ralf begged:
Dear black people, please dont embarass us today on coventry. Sincerely, Ralf .
At 1:04 pm, @SincerelyKELLEY asserted:
All these black people at coventry today . i just KNOW its gonee [going to] be some drama .. smhh [shaking her head] !
At 2:57 pm, leahbonnielove lamented:
I enjoyed coventry this afternoon. Had to go before it got “all black” lmao.
At 4:55 pm, @McTeddy13_, too, lamented (followed by @I_amFatdaddy):
I really wanted to go to the Coventry Festival but it’s just too many black people going so I don’t wanna go anymore -___-
At 5:14 pm, shortly before the flash mob, Yesjessicaa, who is white (and kinda cute), noted:
Nora and I are at the Coventry fair and we walked past a group of black girls and one of them goes “EWWW, I hate white girls”
Just before 6 pm, the “unruly teenagers,” all of them apparently black, rioted. At 6:26 pm, 81smallz suggested:
Young black kids of cleveland… Smarten up.. Ur looking goofy out here.. #coventry
This was re-tweeted by fourteen people, nearly all of them clearly black.
Alright, I think you get the point. From now on, I’m only going to show you a few interesting tweets. There are plenty more out there, all saying pretty much the same thing.
At 7:45 pm, @Murda_Moosh wrote:
coventry fest….never again! a damn mess! black kids dunno how to act !
At 12:04 am, which I’m going to go ahead and call Sunday night, @BoY_SaNiTy (race ambiguous) wrote:
coventry fest….never again! a damn mess! black kids dunno how to act !
At 12:04 am, which I’m going to go ahead and call Sunday night, BoY_SaNiTy (race ambiguous) wrote:
Coventry was just a bunch of over dressed black people looking for trouble i swear on it
MONDAY: AFTERMATH
At 6:44 am, teeelash wrote:
Some shooting in Coventry sha, black boys as usual RT@ yourmbour: AH!!! Wetin happen … RT @teeelash: The black race is cursed.
At 12:09 pm, BadAssNmd_Ticia wrote:
Coventry was nothing but a bunch of black highschool kids running wild. Waste of time #yessssss
At 2:04 pm, KraftyWurker, who is apparently a donkey, wrote:
Newspapers persist in calling black bastards who rioted at Coventry Art Fair “teens” or “kids”. Let’s see how many adults were arrested?
Finally, at 10:08 pm, IndiaAlanna inverted Doctor Strange-love with this tweet:
black ppl fucking up the coventry fest…fighting at the peace park. smh [shaking her head]1
Park dot com.
SATURDAY: PREPARATIONS
As early as 4:09 p.m. on Saturday, June 25, 2011—the day before the “unrest”—Thick_ASS_Jass (who happens to be African-American) complained:
Cleveland Heights merchants cancelled the remaining festival scheduled for the end of July. Cue the ritual denials from the local merchants:
“the flash mob issue is complex and touches on aspects of race and free speech. Most of the kids who gathered in droves during June’s street fair were African-American. The local chapter of the NAACP has voiced concerns that the Cleveland Heights curfew may unfairly target black youths, while the American Civil Liberties Union of Ohio said the police must respect free speech while also protecting public safety.”2
And one more thing, the problem is not just in Cleveland Heights. The Plain Dealer of Cleveland.com reported on meetings about flash mobs from the surrounding communities. The meeting drew people from across Greater Cleveland. Beachwood, Euclid, Wickliffe, and Shaker Heights. They all have experienced flash mobs of black teens.
“It’s frightening to see these flash mobs … they come in swarms like bees,” Warrensville Heights Councilwoman Ruby Wilson said.
So do the math.
That’s at least five more flash mobs of violent black people. That’s a lot of flash mobs, and I have not been able to find one news story about them. Maybe it’s not news. Maybe someone can explain to me why not. But please do a better job than Brandee_Bleue_438, the person who left a comment on the Plain Dealer story:
Absolute and pure BS to claim that mainly Black teens (or to insinuate it) are the participants in these flash mobs - they just get more news coverage.
My brother and I host a talk radio show in Delaware where this has been a topic of disagreement. At least at first. I am conservative. He is liberal. When I first started talking about widespread racial violence in this country, my brother didn’t like it._But I guarantee, if he could find widespread examples of marauding groups of Asians or whites or Eskimos doing all kinds of damage, that would have been the greatest day of his life. Because it would have destroyed my argument. He would love to do that. But the next time he does, it will be the first.
Still waiting.
Goodbye Cleveland.
And, before I forget, Cleveland is one of the places where the more you look, the more you find. Lots of places like that.
And oh yeah, they cancelled the fair in 2012.
22
SOUTH CAROLINA
Beat. Stalk. Prey.
Columbia, South Carolina, is a pretty nice place. Ever been there?
Eight black people stalking five white people, one at a time, in a nice part of town is not something that happens every day. That’s what I used to think until I heard about Five Points.
But on June 20, 2011 that is what happened. A group of eight black people finally caught Carter Strange. They almost killed him. Emergency brain surgery saved his life. Surveillance video caught the perps. They went to nice schools and their mothers loved them. One of the accused was thirteen years old. One of the other guys was supposed to be babysitting him. And the local version of the District Attorney said race had nothing to do with it.1
Just like the big city.
Four of them were “charged under a state’s lynching law.” Eighteen-year-old Carter Strange was “minding his own business, trying to make his curfew when he was brutally attacked and robbed.” He was found unconscious two hours after the beating, and still suffers brain injuries today.2
Police said the seven suspects “were roaming Five Points, targeting others until they came across Strange. In fact, investigators said the group tried unsuccessfully to rob or assault at least four other people.”3
Five Points is an eclectic business district that includes a number of locally owned boutique shops, art galleries, and antique shops. It is a neighborhood that is frequented by gays and is adjacent to the University of South Carolina. Lots of bars attract lots of college students.
College kids. Gay people. Harmless folks minding their own business.
The perfect prey.
After I heard about this brutal beating, I figured Columbia was such a small town, a gentile town, that this was probably an isolated incident.
My bad. There is a ton of racial violence in Columbia, and a ton of media and public officials hoping you won’t notice.
Scott Linaberry noticed. He owned two restaurants in Five Points. He watched crime after brutal crime go under-reported and under-policed, until finally he did it: He belled the cat.
“It’s OK to harass white college students, but it’s not OK to harass the black kids on the street corners,” Linaberry said. “It’s got to be said.”
Linaberry was talking about official reaction to black mob violence in Five Points. After one particularly brutal attack, the chief blamed the white victims for drinking too much. Linaberry is just one of many people in Columbia who are wondering: why racial violence is now such a regular part of the local landscape; why police are focusing on the victims and not the predators; and, why everyone is so afraid to talk about it.
In September 2010 ten black people attacked Josh Bosworth, knocking him unconscious. Then “six more jumped on top of him, taking turns punching and kicking him” as he lay “motionless on the ground.” Bosworth suffered a broken jaw and severe bruising to the head.4
Three of the assailants, all students at Benedict, a nearby black college, were arrested. The Bosworth attack was the first of at least three violent black mob incidents in Five Points that night. One hour before the Bosworth beating, a police report states that eight black people beat up another student in Five Points, breaking his arm.5
At about the same time, four black people robbed a student and fired their guns at nearby cars, hitting at least one before they got away.6
In all of the beatings, assaults, and robberies, all the suspects were black. But the chief of police said race had nothing to do with it. “It involved guys getting into arguments and fighting, and it just goes the wrong way,” said Chief Randy Scott. He and the mayor promised to continue cracking down on underage drinking.7
Leaders of the NAACP also reject the idea that race has anything to do with crime in Columbia. They do not deny that black people are responsible for the overwhelming number of violent altercations in Five Points. They just don’t want to get blamed for it:
“I don’t see these kinds of press conferences in other neighborhoods when children are hurt or kidnapped or killed,” said Lonnie Randolph, president of the SC NAACP. According to the state, the message being sent is “the value of a student at one particular school is far more valuable than a student from another school,” Randolph said.8
Linaberry and others think the official attention is misplaced. He posted on a Five Points Facebook page:
“Why does the city permit the harassment of white college kids in the bar, under the guise of underage drinking (they have to interrupt about 50 people to find one underage, but they’d have everyone believe they bat 1000) but not black thugs on the street via a posted curfew ordinance who have no intention of ever being a customer of Five points. Civil Rights for ALL??”9
Local media is notorious for not identifying the race of the assailants. And when readers do just that on the comments page, their remarks are often removed. But not all the time: “So far all the beatings involve groups of blacks beating up white kids,” said one poster to a local news site. “But the Police Chief states there’s no racial issues going on--no gangs. However, if a group of white kids beat up a black I bet the NAACP will be all over it.”10
“Chief Scott says this was just another fight and will prosecute as such, but we all saw the video and it is evidenced by other incidents that there are groups of thugs preying on white college students,” said another student to the same site.11
In 2012 a petition was started by Eric Heineman to take back Five Points. In September they received more than fifteen hundred signatures.12
Concerned citizens also started a Facebook page to combat the violence in Five Points. It has over six thousand members. They say the violence is worse than ever and urge the police to stop blaming the victims and start paying attention to the predators.
“As a senior at the University of South Carolina, I have seen the increase in the amount of violent crime that has gone on in Five Points,” said Laura Dixon. “The Columbia Police Department’s focus on underage drinking is absurd when there are larger issues at hand, especially the shootings, gang initiations, and beatings that have occurred in Five Points. I am of age and it is legal for me to be in Five Points, but I do not feel safe there due to the number of violent crimes that have occurred there. Please STOP focusing on underage drinking and START focusing on those violent crimes that are actually harming people.”13
The mayor says crime is down in the Five Points area. And it is safe now, but could be safer. Other students say the violent atmosphere is increasingly prevalent:
“My own experience is that groups of black men will loiter around Five Point bars and try to provoke white college students by whistling at their girlfriends, sucker punching them, etc,” said one student to the local paper. “It’s some sick concept
of ‘fun’ that I don’t understand.”
Despite the quasi-official media blackout on the racial violence, at least one columnist spoke out last summer:
“Even then, we still have an 800-pound gorilla in the room that must be dealt with: Was this a racially motivated beating?” wrote Warren Bolton. “That’s not a discussion many people feel comfortable having. But let’s be real. When eight black boys jump on a lone white boy — or if it were the other way around — the question of race will be raised in private circles, if not publicly. Our nation’s and state’s unfortunate racial history and the seen and unseen vestiges that remain today have laid that upon us. If we don’t confront it, it’ll destroy us.”14
By 2013 the black mob violence had started again. Several people were attacked and at least eight guns shots were fired. Even the local paper found it hard to avoid: “Many accuse police of focusing on underage drinking instead of policing gang members who roam the popular entertainment district.”15
But curiously, the one local media person who did at least mention the “800-pound gorilla,” was now throwing victims back under the bus.
Announced Mr. Bolton: “Let’s admit it, Five Points has a drinking problem.”16
Meanwhile, over the holler in Spartanburg, the sheriff is not waiting for the victims to come to terms with their supposed drinking problems. He is urging all women to get concealed weapons permits and to start carrying guns.
23
SEATTLE
“No Drama” City has its own brand of brutish, racial nastiness.
White Girl Bleed A Lot Page 17