From the Peoria Chronicle on June 25, 2011: "Kill all the white people!" Eye-witness account below the fold (hat tip to Infidel Bloggers Alliance).
Tonight, around 11 p.m., a group of at least 60-60 African American youth marched down one of the side streets (W. Thrush) to the 4 lane main drag (Sheridan). They were yelling threats to white residents. Things such as we need to kill all the white people around here. They were physically intimidating anyone calling for help from the police. They were surrounding cars. Cars on the main drag had to slam on their brakes to either avoid the youth blocking not only all four lanes, but a large section of the side street as well. fights were breaking out among them. They were rushing residents who looked out their doors, going on to porches, yelling threats to people calling the police for help.Surreal.
Cars were doing U turns on the streets just to avoid the mob, mostly male. One youth stated his grandfather was white and several assaulted him on the spot. One police officer answered the call. The youth split into two large groups, one heading north, the other south. They were also yelling racial threats to the police officer but he was outnumbered. Another police car did not show up until after the youth finally dispersed and the patty wagon (van) also eventually showed up.
Residents are very shaken, both black and white alike. This is the fifth large mob action in about a month with smaller groups of 10-12 are out threatening children and adults a few evenings a week or later into the night. The times vary, even occurring during the day. In talking to the police officer, they are short staffed. Residents were advised to simply keep inside and to lock their doors. In other words buckle down, it’s not even safe to sit on your porch or go into your yards.
So much for post-racial America.
One very good reason for the 2nd amendment.
ReplyDeletePost racial indeed.
ReplyDeleteWell, since it is the official policy of Eric Holder not to prosecute persons of color when victims are white, then there must not be any consequences for tribal behaviors.
ReplyDeleteAn assault and battery was committeed. This is not just a few teens playing a dangerous game. No, it is more than that. So I have to go with Beth's solution.
So, whom to believe
ReplyDeleteMustang has nailed it!
ReplyDeleteOur president's mentor, the Rev. Wright, taught that America was built by rich white SOBs. Just saying...
ReplyDeleteWhere is the MSM outrage that would have saturated the airwaves had the mob been white and demanded death to black people? But, of course, to a liberal, racism is endemic only to Caucasians who disagree with liberals.
ReplyDeleteBob Mack nailed it, too......the area's been having outbursts a lot lately; This, with young kids walking into stores and just helping themselves and leaving, is becoming quite a phenomenon of the Left: The reaping of the dangerous entitlement promotion.
ReplyDeleteThese are getting very concerning. What to do? Not sure yet
ReplyDeleteDebbie
Right Truth
http://www.righttruth.typepad.com
I believe this is tame compared to what will happen if Hussein is tossed out next year.
ReplyDeleteWhile we cannot afford another four years and we need to get him out, some people are not going to take it well.
Those kids are doing exactly what the left wants them to do. Intimidate, cause discord. They are the end result of the left's class warfare.
ReplyDeleteAt least you lot can get guns and shoot anyone who comes rushing at your home. We're not so lucky.
ReplyDeleteThis is just the beginning. We hear this story and stories about flash mobs rushing into stores and stealing everything in sight...chaos is the friend of the radicals.
ReplyDeleteI find most of the responses here horrible, naive and arrogant to be totally honest.
ReplyDeleteDo we see any "blame the generations of failed system", blame the list of presidents over the decades, of course not, most here have basically either blamed the the African Americans themselves (ie 2nd Ammendment and shoot them) or some typical pathetic attempt to assume the current (and of course Black) President is to blame.
I am British, I am conservative and we have our own race problems of which perhaps is even more severe then yours, but if you want to score points rather than talk the issue logically, you are doomed to being called fringe and foolish. If you were school kids you would have your "guns" taken away from you and given a real spankin'.
These events is the result of bad socio-economoics over generations, that is all. For every angry radical African American out there, there are goofball hillbillies responding like you lot have, and to quote a redneck commedian, Bill Engvall, "there's your sign!".
Damien,
ReplyDeleteThese events is [sic] the result of bad socio-economoics over generations, that is all.
From what I know of Peoria, that analysis doesn't fit.
I ask that you not refer to commenters here as goofball hillbillies.
Yeah, I'm pretty tired of the "hillbilly/redneck" stereotyping. It's just as wrong and bigoted as making demeaning comments about blacks or other ethnic groups like Jews, Irish and Scots.
ReplyDeleteAnd it is not all about socio-economics. In large measure, it is the breakdown of the family. Most of these boys have no father who is involved in their lives. This is why they engage in gangs and peer activity like flash mobs: to a degree the bonding they get from these activities is trying to compensate for the the lack of family (specifically male) nurturing and guidance.
Damien, what about the millions of poor whites who are not screaming to kill anybody? The "failed system".... against Blacks? Have you been to America? Most Blacks are fine, upstanding citizens who aren't doing any call to arms! And, of course, the socio economic problems for that sector of America began with welfare, when the left decided a brilliant idea was to drive fathers from the homes so everyone else could raise his family with their tax dollars.
ReplyDeleteThe only real 'failed system' we've had is these last few years with our economy and the way Obama's dragging us all down.
People are frightened and angry here; nothing stops the bad guys because we daren't say anything for fear of political correctness. THank GOD for blogs where people can vent their fears in writing. Let's hope to God it comes to no more than that.
Wow. Teenage flash mob goes after patrons in a Philadelphia restaurant
ReplyDeleteI do unequivicably take back the goofball hillbilly comment, I did so to provoke and though it worked, it was not my place to do so.
ReplyDeleteNow having said that, there are comments here, that are equally stereotype.
Yes I have been to the US many, many times over the last 30 plus years and have seen the various problems not only within the African-American community and I have seen the reincarnations of what is often the same problem.
It is socio-economic, totally. Socio-economics is a very general term but it fits the bill. Fatherless children is a perfect example, because it still comes down to having marginalised communities that are often pushed into the lower-economic areas, the ghetto syndrome starts, the lack of resources and morale to pull the community out. Not all are affected, there are great examples of those that escape that scenario but there is even a larger sector that does not.
It comes down to bad planning, lack of effort, corporate and business sectors not interested in losing money in such areas so work does not arrive and when there is a general nation or global economic downturn, these communities then become on the bottom of the heap and the last to have the chances to improve. Immigrants, African-Americans and Latino-Americans are the examples.
Add to that radical politicians and those that want to make a name for themselves via popularism will target these communities as being the source of problems rather than reversing it and saying that by not looking after or supporting the marginalised sectors creates the problem in the first place.
As a nation, your governments be they Republican or Democrat have failed to address these issues, from imancipation to risk community targetting and your now stuck with the problem. Immigration is a key example and we in Europe have shown how bad it can be and the US has failed to notice. Your economies need cheap immigrant labour and yet you blame them for taking jobs and being illegal, so why not pick and chose and make most legal and then enforce a strict penalty on employers of illegals? It just goes on.
The point I made is I see what I think is arrogant and ignorant comments here, blame being put on your political targets rather than on the causes and it is simply a waste of space.
A last comment, if you want to talk about stereotyping, then avoid it.
Damien,
ReplyDeleterather than reversing it and saying that by not looking after or supporting the marginalised sectors creates the problem in the first place
Whose responsibility is it to "reverse" the situation? John McWhorter, an African-American linguist, has quite a different view than the one you seem to hold. I cite his book: Losing the Race: Self-sabotage in Black America, recommended to me by a black client who dug her way out of the vicious cycle that so often plagues black communities.
As for comments here, you will naturally see a lot of frustration. We feel a great disconnect between the will of WE THE PEOPLE and our elected public servants.
I have read about self-sabotage in marginalised communities a few times.
ReplyDeleteAgain, my comments are in a generalised fashion and I continue to believe that events like self-sabotage still comes as an affect from the original errors.
Mind you, the errors or abuses of the past are still very human and very much there - ie they are a part of our history. Thus, we can argue and that I will not begrudge anyone who says, what about now and how much is it for these communities to "pull themselves" out of these wholes. Often communities feel so agrevied and down-trodden that they assume future generations are responsible for thier ancestors' errors and thus must "pull them out" with no effort on their part.
That last argument also sits with many developing countries whom were basically ruined by us colonial powers. Illogical borders, political systems, installing tyrants and resource-rape all certainly existed and has results that are evedent even until today, but is that an excuse for continued corruption, present day dictators and so on?
The answer to both is a big "yes and no" and the effort must be made to work out the identify, accept and understand the causes equally with what is the current result or situation and its effacts now. I too would be scared of gangs attacking my neighbourhood or home and I certainly would take a life to protect my children but at the very same time, I do not blame them as the cause.
Thus, to answer you question, who is responsible to repair the situation - everyones because to repair a situation needs authority to make it happen and the population to understand, appreciate and support it. Add to that the participants, on all sides to allow it to be repaired.
Excuse my spelling errors, I sit in bed putting direct into the comment box without spell-checking. I write all day crossing between legal Spanish and less so these days in English. I then read it in gmail as it comes back and I am horrified and my wife laughs and tells me that my hard-earned effort in touch-typing is back-firing.... (and that I should get up and find my reading glasses...)bancarta
ReplyDeleteDamien,
ReplyDeleteI live in the Washington, D.C., area, and know of the rectifying measures that have been taken (1964 onwards). I'm sure that some benefited from those measures, but many in the inner city here are their own worst enemy, particularly with regard to drug and alcohol problems as well as issues with inner-city schools. Also, of course, the lack of a father in so many homes and poor parenting contribute to the cycle.
In my view, continuing to resent past wrongs ultimately serves no purpose except to increase anger and problems within that particular community. Ultimately, these teenage flash mobs will serve only to increase racial division.
In my own case (not a racial example), a few short generations before me, a long-standing family feud with the resulting deaths served only to make more problems -- to the point that those fed up with the feud left that region to escape the cycle of violence; the ones who left had to start over completely. The few times that I've returned to that region one generation later, I've found that my presence there was actually dangerous to my own personal safety: apparently the feud is still a factor for those in the region and just waiting to start up again.
Damien,
ReplyDeleteYet another problem with the inner city in the D.C. area.
"continuing to resent past wrongs ultimately serves no purpose except to increase anger and problems within that particular community"
ReplyDeleteI agree with that comment. In my view errors, poor judgement and very negative but very human habits is what made many of these situations, if not most of them. Having said that your comment above is valid and it is a difficult but necessary task to make better the situation. I visit DC at least once a year for forum reasons and I am aware of some of what you obviously know and experience.
Though the situation is very difficult, the reality is always going to be that it takes all communities and government to repair the situation and "blame does nothing whilst understanding does everything" (to quote Desmond Tutu).
Damien,
ReplyDeleteAs you may know, the Anacostia area in SE Washington -- a hotbed of the illicit drug trade -- was renovated to build a baseball stadium. The removal of the cement plant helped to clean up the drug trade in that part of Anacostia, but, of course, some jobs got lost in the process. The heroin users, in effect, had to move elsewhere; the drug dealers found a new location to deal.
Some private residents weren't happy with the amount of money they received as their homes were old and run down: some were just shacks, but there were other long-time family homes lost.
I should also point out that most who bought (and still buy) drugs in Anacostia came from other locations. In fact, many of the drug users were people, both white and black who came into DC to buy drugs. That's still the case in the drug-dealing areas of DC. Most police officers in DC are black, but they turn a blind eye to how destructive the drug trade is; besides, dealing drugs is easy money for many dealers, and they'd rather deal drugs than do something else for a living.
I'm blabbing on about DC only because, as a local, I am familiar with the problems.
Damien,
ReplyDeleteAs you likely know, much renovation was done in the DC in the 60s and 70s. Those who should have benefited from the renovations resented those renovations instead as family homes were torn down. What was intended as help was seen as "the man" pushing "the folks" around.
It's a complicated mess -- to the point that blacks who really desire "a chance" and "a better life" have exited certain neighborhoods in DC.
Drug trafficking is a horrible and sad reality globally these days and if you are in a key area you can see or know of those who's lives are destroyed. My safe-haven of Gibraltar is surrounded by drug zones and in my years I have seen, worked against as a prosecutor and have had family affected by drugs.
ReplyDeleteI believe it is wrong to assume that it is the users because the dealers target society as a whole. Good kids from good neighbourhoods are also victims of drugs with the alcohol & cigaretts growing to dope and uppers/downers to hard core stuff. New boutique drugs are often immediately addictive. Peer pressure to excitement are as much causes as absent parents or other pressures.
My traditionalism and Catholic faith tends towards blaming forgetting morals, breakdowns in family values and forgetting God. My professional experience tells me that it is a very complex combination of social selfishness, economics and education (or lack there of).
Self-Segregation is often a result of lack of confidence on a community scale - in otherwords, "we will stick together and avoid them because they will not accept us or abuse us". Of course there is also community leadership factors that encourage that as it also encourages their own leadership or popularity. I noticed that with some African-American preachers and civic leaders. The black community in Britain is a mix of original African and Carribean and the level of self-segregation is less than in the US as is also inter-marriage. The south-Asian community is starting to self-segregate but within its own communities (Sri-Lankans, Bengalis and mostly the Pakistanis with Indians the least), which also reflects social and political issues.
ReplyDeleteThe question would be if the economy, work and negative social-factors dissapeared, would the segregation also dissapear? I read an item about a year ago that said examples in Atlanta and Savannah Georgia says yes. That says it is possible, the reality though of course is uniquely different and difficult in every area.
Damien, perhaps you are already aware but read some black conservative op ed columnists like Star Parker, Larry Elder, Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell. Then read pieces written by so-called "leaders" of the black community like Jesse Jackson, Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan. It is quite a contrast in views of the blacks in America.
ReplyDeleteDamien,
ReplyDeleteSelf-Segregation is often a result of lack of confidence on a community scale - in otherwords, "we will stick together and avoid them because they will not accept us or abuse us".
Perhaps.
But one family whom I know self-segregates and doesn't fit that scenario. The wife has a PhD and the husband a master's degree. Once again, we see the importance of education as the ticket out of grinding poverty and of dwelling on past wrongs. In fact, it was the school system that promoted the idea of white guilt and justified anger over past wrongs -- to the point that the mother of one of the boys send him to Ghana to find out just how many real advantages African Americans have in America today.
Interestingly, this couple takes the following position: "Yes, there is racism. But that isn't an excuse for African Americans to fail or to carry a chip on their shoulders."
I would add that this family lives in a mansion in a very posh subdivision. In comparison, I live in a quonset hut! My "hut" has been in my family since 1947, BTW. And I'm happy to be living in this last of the family homes.
I keep referring to "this family." Probably a mistake on my part as they consider my husband and me part of their family. In fact, when my husband and I needed help after my husband's devastating brain hemorrhage in 2009, the showed up and did THIS for us. I am proud to have on my mantel shelf a picture of the two children (adults, really) with me -- arms around each other.
I would also note that "this family" is proud of their black culture and black heritage; at the same time, they expect me to be proud of my white culture. We respect each other! No condescension whatsoever.
Great story to remind all of us that "good people" exist with both self-respect and respect for others. I have met a few in my life, not often enough though...
ReplyDelete