White Girl Bleed a Lot (14 page)

“Heading north on Lake Shore Drive coming out of the S-curve right there near the Drake Hotel and there are people literally trying to run across Lake Shore Drive,” the woman said. “I almost took out two of them because they’re jumping the fence at the beach and they’re trying to run across the drive (Lake Shore Drive).”
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Emergency dispatchers also handled numerous calls from people reporting stolen purses, bicycles, and other property. In the days following the decision to clear the beach, Mayor Rahm Emanuel issued a response, saying police made the correct decision.

“You have a series of phone calls coming in from a single beach about heat. … It’s the first real hot day we’ve had. The police, in judgment with the paramedics, made a decision that, for the paramedics to do their job, the beach needed to be closed. … If they didn’t have those phone calls, the beach would have stayed open,” Emanuel said.
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One day after Emanuel blamed a surge of calls about patrons suffering from heat exhaustion for the beach closing, McCarthy stood at the mayor’s side and agreed. Asked point-blank what role, if any, violence played in the closing, McCarthy said without hesitation, “None.”

One of the witnesses to the Chicago beach riots talked about the attacks. Amy Schwartz told NBC Chicago about how she saw a woman being beaten and kicked while mobs stood by and cheered. She said she heard of other 911 calls about “people being rude and intimidating and abusive.”
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Several news accounts of the event featured black activists who work on anti-gang programs. While they never mentioned the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, it is clear from the readers’ comments and other information that the North Avenue beach riot was black people behaving badly.

By June 6, 2011, you might think the mobs became more violent. That would not be true. The truth is, they just became more visible. And news of the frequent—and unreported—attacks from the previous year started leaking into local press reports.

“Police sources said they have been aware of large groups of teens causing trouble along North Michigan Avenue for at least the last year. One source said the fear is the attacks could become more frequent as the weather gets warmer.”
¹¹

Whoa! Don’t go past this. Large groups of teens have been causing trouble for a year, and this is the first that the newspaper reports it? A one year crime wave and the paper is doing the “sources said” thing?

Come on, man.

Insert your own expletive of exasperation here.

The newspapers either knew what was happening and did not report it. Or did not know. I cannot figure out which is worse.

Despite the best efforts of the major Chicago papers to keep a lid on the fact that a wave of racial violence was sweeping their city, the readers of the stories were not having any part of it. They demanded the papers tell the truth about the frequency of the attacks, the extent of the violence, and the race of the attackers. There is no doubt some folks go over the top when talking about a newspaper’s refusal to describe the race of criminals. But lots of other folks just wanted to know: Why don’t you describe their race? What is the paper trying to hide? And in response the
Chicago Tribune
closed the message board because of “excessive violations of the
Tribune
’s comment policies.”

Translation: Too many people asking too many of the wrong questions.

Shutting down the message board might have worked, except for one thing. There were more racial attacks. They exploded. News from Chicago universities, gay neighborhoods, wealthy downtown districts, buses, beaches, parks, and other areas was all the same: Black people committing violence seemingly at random. And, oh yeah, it had been going on for a while.

It wasn’t until they started targeting tourists, though, that the paper seemed to start to realize the city had a problem with mob violence. A doctor from Seattle, in town for a medical convention, was beaten and robbed by a mob of twenty black people. The
Chicago Tribune
opened its eyes at least a little:

“I think it reflects badly on Chicago,” said Dr. Jack Singer, 68, a Seattle oncologist who was one of two victims in town for a convention of cancer specialists at McCormick Place. “I’ve been coming to the convention every year, and this is the first time I’ve felt threatened downtown.”

The outbreak of random violence along a busy stretch of Chicago Avenue and the lakefront creates a sensitive issue for city officials eager to boost tourism and convention business.

“No matter what, we have to remember this isn’t just about downtown residents, but our tourism economy,” said Ald. Brendan Reilly, whose 42nd Ward encompasses most of the downtown business district. “Perception is reality in tourism world. There are economic consequences if people think downtown isn’t safe….”

The attacks occurred around 8:30 p.m. Saturday. Moments after a group of teens wrestled with Singer over his iPad and BlackBerry, members of the same mob attacked a 42-year-old doctor visiting from Japan. That doctor was beaten and robbed of his iPod Touch while walking in the 700 block of North Lake Shore Drive, authorities said.

“He looked like he had no idea what had happened,” Singer said of the Japanese doctor, who rode with him in a squad car while helping police search for the assailants.

Both physicians were in town for the annual convention of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, which entered into a 10-year deal with McCormick Place in 2010. The five-day event typically brings in more than 30,000 doctors, vendors, and other specialists from around the world.

Police sources said they have been aware of large groups of teens causing trouble along North Michigan Avenue for at least the last year. One source said the fear is the attacks could become more frequent as the weather gets warmer.
¹²

Back in the old days, newspapers hired people called reporters to let their readers know about this kind of thing that had been happening for at least a year.

At least
a year.

Just let that sit for a minute. Think about the number of people who have to know about black gang violence exploding throughout the city—and who decided it is not worth mentioning. Talk about the bigotry of soft expectations. Or the danger they placed people in by not giving them information.

Let’s move on to another upscale Chicago neighborhood:
Boystown. Something else they will not tell you in the news accounts is that Boystown is a gay neighborhood.

In July 2011 a man spilled a drink on another man. The man who got wet was part of a large gang of black people. 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.”
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The newspapers failed to mention that many victims of racial violence are gay. Robinson got stabbed and beat up. It’s on video. Let’s go to the local ABC affiliate:

“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.
¹⁴

A subject that has been coming up for years?

This was the third stabbing in as many weeks. And that does not count the other episodes of racial violence that people know about but were too afraid to report.

Thank you YouTube. And thanks to the Alderman for telling the truth, albeit accidentally.

In early June 2011 Chicago police arrested several black men for a series of four attacks and robberies in the same neighborhood. The local NBC affiliate reported on the incidents and the arrest, but the report was lacking.
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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.

People like to make all kinds of excuses: Kids like the beach. Kids don’t have parents. The weather is getting warmer. Whatever.

It’s probably all true, but why did no one have anything to say about the central unifying feature of the attacks: Race? Or even worse, if they did say something, why did no one report it?

Before we get to some official reaction, let’s wrap up the riot part with more details about specific attacks:

Student journalists at Loyola University’s Water Tower campus began reporting on a rash of “flash mob” crimes in February 2011.

Instead of bursting into song and dance, groups of juveniles activated by text messages rushed into stores, filled their arms with merchandise and fled. The idea apparently was that security guards couldn’t possibly catch them all.

Loyola’s campus security warned students that the gangs
were believed to be arriving via the CTA Red Line’s Chicago Avenue station.

Police stepped up their presence in the area and merchants doubled down on security. But things have clearly escalated. In April, the McDonald’s at Chicago Avenue and State Street was swarmed by 70 youths who created a disturbance serious enough to summon 10 police units. The restaurant was closed for hours afterward.

Saturday night’s attacks were senseless and over the top. How many young men does it take to relieve a single unsuspecting citizen of his iPod? The victims all were punched and beaten repeatedly; one was hit in the face with a baseball. The take: a handful of electronic toys, a bicycle, a wallet.
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In June 2011 “as many as 15 teens … stormed Chicago Transit Authority buses, attacked their victims and darted off with cell phones and other electronic devices”
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Yes, the perpetrators were black.

Incident after incident, groups of young men beat and rob victims. Streeterville, the Gold Coast, the Magnificent Mile, all up and down North Shore Drive were reports of mob violence against individuals and businesses.

Pausing from passing out fliers for a discount men’s store in the 400 block of North Michigan on Sunday, Joseph Reyes recalled being roughed up by a mob of about a dozen teens in October while he was wearing a gorilla suit to promote a Halloween store. Similar groups tried to shoplift from the store, prompting owners to hire private security.
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Even quasi-famous people get flash mobbed:

The latest attack occurred early Thursday morning. A spokesman for the Chicago Police Department said the attack involved “multiple” perpetrators near an elevated
train platform. Described in the police report as a “strong arm robbery,” the group of assailants took the victim’s iPad and money and punched him in the face. No arrests have yet been made in that case.

The Chicago Tribune reported the victim was Jesse Andersen, the 35-year-old brother of Smashing Pumpkins front-man Billy Corgan.
¹⁹

Given the epidemic of racial violence in Chicago, readers were increasingly indignant that newspapers were not reporting that all of the assailants were black.
The Chicago Tribune’s
Steve Chapman had an answer ready: you are a racist if you even ask.

There are good reasons not to identify the attackers by race. It’s the newspaper’s sound general policy not to mention race in a story, whether about crime or anything else, unless it has some clear relevance to the topic….

My question to readers accusing us of political correctness is: Why do you care so much about the attackers’ race? If you fear or dislike blacks, I suppose it would confirm your prejudice. But otherwise, it tells you nothing useful.
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Well, Mr. Steve Chapman, here’s one reason that we should care: when papers like the
Chicago Tribune
support affirmative action, racial quotas, and other race-based solutions to very difficult problems, asking for the paper to identify the assailants is one way of asking “How’s that working out for you?” On a more practical level, giving the details may help someone avoid being a victim of the next mob attack.

Let’s take the flip side. What if a bunch of Mormons or Methodists piled out of church and went on a violent rampage? Would that be a story?

Even Chapman and the
Chicago Tribune
could not miss that one.

Another
Tribune
genius weighs in, labors mightily, and brings forth the same mouse: All the rioters are black, Mary Schmich concedes. But they were motivated by robbery, not racial animus, sayeth the mind-reading geniuses at the
Chicago Tribune
.
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Besides not all the victims were white. That proves it was not a race riot.

Once again, confusing victims with perpetrators.

While Chapman and the
Chicago Tribune
do not even want to consider the question of race, Gary McCarthy, Superintendent of Police in Chicago—the same guy who said there was no problem at the North Avenue beach—is a bit braver and bolder. He came up with a person to blame for the hyper-violence in Chicago: Sarah Palin.