88) “Like streaking in the 70s this is a fad that will pass.”
89–90) Let’s protect our corporate culture at all costs. And Repubs not passing any job creation legislation.”
90–91) “I just think it’s so overblown. … I have more issues with assault weapons loose on our streets.”
92) “We are raising kids in a materialistic society.”
93) Talk about THEFT = $ flow of taxes.
94) Well, McDonalds only has so many openings. You know, with adults with degrees filling the positions.
95) Corporate Culture reaps what it sows. … You want teenagers in your stores? Well, here they are!!!
96) More SKATEBOARD PARKS!!!
97) Hail to the Corporate Machine that feeds the shallow ego of our teens! More sneakers! More iPhones!
98–99) It is a risk--reward thing with teens. They like risky activity. They can do an even riskier activity for a more intense rush afterwards if they get together and do it this way.
Hip hop giant Dr. Dre did not appear on this broadcast of HuffPo Live. But his explanation is probably the most popular, because it appears on one of the best-selling hip hop recordings of all time, The Chronic:
100) “When niggas get together, they get mad.”
On the talk radio show my brother and I host, as well as in frequent media appearances around the country, I probably hear more excuses than most. But more and more I get the feeling that even the most ardent apologist is getting tired of offering the same old excuses for the same old behavior.
Watch the video of HuffPo live. You tell me.
27
FLASH ROBS
Smile for the camera, thugs.
We have come to the “we are good kids never did anything bad like this before, but, yes, that is me on the video robbing that store” part of the book. As I mentioned in chapter 18, the National Retail Federation reported that 10 percent of retail stores in America were victims of flash robs in 2011, some several times. That is a lot of robbing, and I’m sure a lot of it was caught on video. Unfortunately, I only have room to give you a dozen or so examples.1
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: ABC News on Flash Robs
“Flash robs,” hordes of black people looting retail outlets that are so prevalent in the rest of the country, have taken a peculiar twist in Atlanta. Since 2008 several gangs of people have been videotaped in late night smash-and-grab robberies involving cars, jewelry, clothing, and eyeglasses. In 2009 at one optical store, thieves made off with an estimated $50,000 in designer eyeglass frames said store owner Ghazal Sabeti Tabrizipour. “It’s the same guys every time, in a gray van parked in front of the store,” Tabrizipour said. “They come in and smash all the glass. They know exactly what to go for.”2
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Smash and Grab
In 2010 thieves “pulled off a pair of smash-and-grab burglaries…. [They] rammed a Ford Taurus through the entrance to the Focus Clothing Store downtown, ransacked the shop, and escaped with $50,000 worth of designer jeans.” Police arrested nine gang members. All were black.3
The Wall Street Journal ran a story on flash robs in October 2011. In it I dutifully informed its readers that the crimes were not random, but were part of the growing trend of race violence. Some of the readers called me names. Not good ones either, in case you were wondering. Others asked the same question I did: Why is it so hard for some people to talk about this (without calling people names, that is)? The reporters who call people names deserve their own chapter. Either way, I feel it’s my responsibility to point out the obvious, so let’s take a stroll down Flash Rob Lane.4
GREENWICH VILLAGE
Why not start at Dunkin’ Donuts in Greenwich Village? In 2011 just after eight o’clock at night, a mob of black people terrorized the doughnut shop. They rushed in and did lots of damage. They threw chairs around, smashed a hot chocolate machine, and stole sweets out of the case. It all happened in a matter of minutes and no cash was taken from the register. The local ABC affiliate reported that “what happened at the Dunkin’ Donuts is just the latest in a string of incidents in the Village.”5
The “swarm mob” rampage was caught on video.
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Dunkin’ Donuts Melee
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Down in Washington, D.C., a mob decided to have a party at G-Star Raw. Nineteen black people walked into the high-end clothing store. They searched for their sizes, grabbed the clothes, and then just left. Madison Avenue likes the gangster brands. They just don’t like it when people actually act like gangsters.
“It happened in broad daylight,” reported the local CBS affiliate. “In just a matter of minutes, thousands of dollars’ worth of clothes were stolen. … The manager of G-Star Raw, who did not want to talk on camera, said he’s heard from other store managers in Washington that flash mob robberies are becoming increasingly common.”6
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: G-Star Raw Flash Rob
UPPER DARBY
Over in the City of Brotherly Love back in 2011, forty blacks decided to turn a local Sears into their own personal closet. The young black people organized the event on Twitter. They all took a train to the store (because they were too young to drive), brazenly strolled right in, and started robbing the place. It was fast. They grabbed sneakers, socks, of course, and watches. In and out.7
LAS VEGAS
My favorite city in the world is Las Vegas. The casinos are always trying to entice you with free stuff. But I don’t think this is what they had in mind. In May 2011 twenty black people stormed a convenience store and grabbed whatever they could find. Fox News contributor Dr. Keith Ablow said, “It takes time to realize what is going on.” The manager tried to chase them out of the store, and might have succeeded if one of the hoodlums hadn’t pulled a gun. That’s when the group came back for seconds, and the manager fled the scene. Local cops issued a warning to clerks: Don’t resist.8
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Vegas Snatch-and-Grab
PHILADELPHIA
This may have been a flash rob gone wrong. We’re not sure. In March 2011 as shoppers were browsing the store at seven o’clock in the evening, a group of black people began fighting. Maybe two girls grabbed the same shirt before they made a mad dash for the exit. We just don’t know what started it. What we do know, though, is that the teens were charged with reckless endangerment and destruction of property for, among other things, knocking the head off a mannequin wearing a “Not Violence” T-shirt.9
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: H&M Riot in Philadelphia
DETROIT
Don’t forget the Motor City. In October 2011 a group of about twenty black people stormed a gas station convenience store. Sam Matalka, the owner of the store, said he “lost hundreds of dollars in merchandise and had to spend hours cleaning up the damages caused by the teens.”
The mob had just come from crashing an eighth grade graduation party “where witnesses said a fight broke out and shots were fired in the parking lot after the teens crashed the party.” After the gas station melee the same group went on to terrorize a nearby White Castle. They tormented the customers and attacked one man after he fled the restaurant.10
Officials in Detroit have long since stopped pretending they do not have a big problem with racial violence. In the fall of 2012 the online hot topic forum Soda Head reported that “the night before Halloween, Brent Holloway was walking home at 10:30 p.m. A group of 5-10 black people stopped him, asked for a cigarette, then beat him with fists and a baseball bat—only stopping when one of the attackers yelled ‘Stop, you’re going to kill him,’ his stepmother told local news outlets. No one was arrested.11
CANADA
It seems that even our neighbors to the north aren’t immune from racial mob violence. I guess some of our problems are seeping across the border. In July 2011 Canada had its first flash rob, or “flash theft,” as they call it up there. Around midnight a quickie mart on the west side of Otta
wa was overrun by about forty black people. After a quick game of snatch and grab the group got away with about eight hundred dollars’ worth of merchandise. Constable Marc Soucy is “worried a little bit about the phenomenon” and thinks that it is “a youth thing … for a rush of adrenalin.”12
MONTGOMERY COUNTY
On August 13, 2011 nearly thirty black youth flash robbed two 7-Eleven stores in Montgomery County, Maryland. “Criminal activity by flash mobs has occurred far beyond Montgomery County,” said Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett, “and has, in fact, become a national and international issue of concern.”13
In 2009 a group of five people expertly smashed the window of an Apple Sore in Marlton, New Jersey. With precision and speed the criminals “scooped up merchandise like a holiday shopping spree.” The thieves pretended to have a gun to intimidate the security guard. “It all happened in 31 seconds flat.”14
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Germantown 7-Eleven Heist
STOCKTON, CALIFORNIA
Almost missed this one from Stockton, California: Rush, steal, run. But this time the cops were ready. When twenty-four black people showed up in eight cars, Stockton police and the highway patrol “quickly converged on the business and rounded up the suspects.” They arrested fourteen adults and ten kids on this one. And one of the cars they had used was stolen as well.15
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: Rush. Steal. Run.
28
GAY VIOLENCE
Keep It on the Down Low.
Black mob violence against gay people is a perfect storm on three fronts: 1) Newspapers do not report black violence; 2) victims do not report the crimes; and 3) being gay is “about the worst thing you can be in black culture,” CNN anchor Don Lemon told The New York Times.1
That is why the issue of black-on-gay violence is more widespread and less reported than most people think. I will start with the benign and work toward the violent. But first let’s take a look at some facts. In 2008 seventy percent of black people in California voted overwhelmingly for Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages. Gay writer Dan Savage belled the cat:
I’m done pretending that the handful of racist gay white men out there … are a bigger problem for African Americans, gay and straight, than the huge numbers of homophobic African Americans are for gay Americans.2
In the hyper-sensitive environs of the politically correct, this was a shot heard round the world.
Black antipathy towards gay people is featured in the work of the most popular black hip hop performers. Comments from super star 50 Cent represent hundreds of articles and videos old and new easily found on the Internet. 50 Cent hating on gay people:
I ain’t into faggots. I don’t like gay people around me, because I’m not comfortable with what their thoughts are.3
Holding homophobic views is one thing. Committing violence against gays is another. And more people are finding it harder to ignore the “anti-gay violence that plagues the black community,” says a headline for an article by Kenyon Farrow in The Grio, a black news Web site produced by NBC News. “Incidents in the black community usually receive little or no attention, we have our own problems with homophobic violence here in the U.S.”4
In 2012 when Brandon White was leaving a convenience store in the Jack City area of Pittsburgh, he was surrounded by ten black men, three of whom knocked him down, punched and kicked him, and even slammed him with a tire. Another member of the gang shot video while repeating “no faggots in Pittsburgh Jack City.”5
White, who is gay, told CNN he did not report the crime “because he did not want to draw attention to himself.” After the video was posted on YouTube it was picked up by World Hip Hop. White could not even bring himself to watch the video at first, he was so humiliated and embarrassed. It was only after the video went viral that he reported the crime.
“I was very violated,” said White. “Who’s to say they won’t come after me again … Who’s to say they won’t kill me?”6
They even brag about “stealing necklaces, display gang signs, and refer to themselves as ‘goons.’ One man describes himself as a ‘wild dog,’ while another says, ‘I’m the Tasmanian Devil.’”7
Two of the men have been arrested and await trial. In 2010 in what was probably Atlanta’s largest and most vicious assault on gay people, hundreds of black people raged through a crowd at an outdoor summer movie festival in an Atlanta gay neighborhood. One commenter to Creative Loafing complained that it was “a dreadful sight. People were being hit … as they walked to their cars… I also cannot believe that police did not see a mob of 50 walking down the street assaulting innocent people.”
Jesse Rhodes, another witness, told the local gay paper that many of the black mobs were targeting gay people:
What happened last night (June 3) at Screen on the Green was not simply “fights” between unruly teens as the local TV stations would like their audiences to believe. These savages went apeshit and hunted down gays and lesbians to attack!
They specifically began targeting members of the LGBT community around Blake’s and along 10th St. The local news media is acting as if this were a simple scuffle and that’s totally unacceptable.
It was like a riot in a third world country.8
Rhodes said that they “felt like sitting ducks.” One of his good friends was jumped by five black people. When Rhodes and his friends were leaving the park the mob called them “faggot” and other obscenities. The women were called lesbians, but you didn’t hear about any of that in the local mainstream press. The next day, Atlanta police said they had no reports of any anti-gay violence, and very little information about violence of any kind at the festival.9 The Chicago neighborhood Boystown is an “eclectic” (that’s the journalistic code word for ‘gay’) area that is usually tranquil. However, in the summer of 2011 Boystown and the similar neighborhood of Streeterville to the south saw more than its share of black racial violence.
In June 2011 Chicago police arrested five black teenagers for a series of four attacks and robberies in Streeterville. They were part of a mob of about twenty. In one incident a man was “knocked off his bike, then punched and robbed.” In another incident a mob of twenty threw a baseball at a man’s face, knocking him to the ground. Then the group “punched and hit him several times.”10
The local NBC affiliate reported on the incidents and the arrest, but the report was lacking. Any distinguishing features of the victims or assailants? You could not tell if you only listened to this account, but the people arrested were black. At least one of the victims was gay. And everyone was a lot happier not talking about it. Except for one local gay resident who says the problem of violence and lawlessness is reaching epidemic levels:
A rash of violent crime by black youth in Chicago’s predominately gay and wh8ite Lakeview neighborhood (aka, Boys-town) has residents on edge, and sparking age old tensions between Blacks and the White GBLT community,” said one video blogger. “It’s been going on for a couple of years. People are getting very, very frightened.”
The blogger says white people are afraid to mention the race of their attackers, for fear of being labeled a racist. “But if it’s true, it’s true,” he said.
In July 2011 in Boystown, a man accidentally spilled a drink on another man. That’s the way the papers report it, when it could have just as easily been reported the other way: a group of thugs were bumping and shoving people on the street. The man who got wet was part of a black mob. The soon-to-be-victim, Rubin Robinson, was also black. He was a beautician and actor walking with his boyfriend.
One gay paper said that there had been an uptick in crime and reported that a large community meeting was held to address the problem. “Some comments appeared to blame crimes on people, especially youths, who come into the neighborhood from poorer, largely black and Latino areas.” The meeting drew nearly eight hundred people. “Some attendees demanded a larger police presence … others asserted that the youth programs at the Center on
Halsted, Chicago’s LGBT community center, bring crime into the neighborhood.”11
The newspapers failed to mention that many victims of racial violence are gay. Robinson got stabbed and beat up. The local ABC affiliate reported:
“It was an obvious mob mentality. You saw people cheering it on. People running in to give one quick jab or kick and then back out and cheering them on. It’s scary,” Sall said.
Though unrelated, residents say this is the third stabbing in the area in recent weeks. The last one happened five days ago, just one block north, when a man was robbed in a 7-Eleven parking lot at Halsted and Roscoe.
Residents say the problems are due to large groups of people from outside the neighborhood loitering in the area. Alderman Tom Tunney, 44th Ward, said Monday night that this is a subject that has been coming up for the last couple of years.
“There tends to be large groups of minority youths on Halsted. Whether they are patronizing the businesses or not, it’s an area where they feel safe. It’s a balancing act that we’re trying to make it safe for everyone,” Tunney said.
“There tends to be large groups of minority youths on Halsted.”12
Third stabbing in recent weeks? The subject has been coming up for years? Minority youths? No one knew about the serial gay bashing in Boystown until this Alderman revealed it almost by accident. Almost apologetically for noticing the predators were black.
In July 2012 a mob of black people pelted cars outside of a gay club with bottles and rocks. When police were slow to respond, one man accused them of being racist because they would not arrest the black law breakers. The article asks if it’s a problem of police not doing enough or if their hands are tied due to lack of manpower. One commenter at the end of the article said, “this type of uncivil behavior is a nightly event in Boystown,” then offered a more appropriate question:
White Girl Bleed A Lot Page 21