White Girl Bleed a Lot (42 page)

Nine additional police agencies were called in to help—all funded by a Community Mental Health grant. The paper’s editorial board announced the “city must continue to show its best face.” What about the hundreds of people in the video? “Those few bad apples need to be reigned in and not allowed to cast any negative light on events like Back to the Bricks.”
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If at this point you are wondering if a newspaper’s job is to show a true face, then I guess you are paying attention. Which brings us back to 2011. The first thing we know about the troubles of 2011 is that 2012, was “a lot better.” And the twenty-two people arrested were “less than one percent” of the 2011 attendees.
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There’s that arrest thing again: If no one gets arrested, nothing happened. In 2011, the people of Flint spoke out. Eyewitness accounts at FlintTalk.com present a more complete view:

The media won’t be honest with you, but you can find out what is happening on Flint Police operations FACEBOOK. I went there as soon as i started receiving call about violence in downtown Flint last night.

Flint Police had to keep officers on overtime and called in officers to help. The paddy wagon was called in and officers had to borrow handcuffs as they did not have enough. Even our female officers were said to be “kicking butt” last night as Police attempted to reclaim the streets. Officers assisting from other jurisdictions had Tasers and it seems obvious our Flint officers need them too.

The evening started badly in Rollingwood as a group of about 15 black males chased and threatened to rape 2 young girls ages 14 and 15. Despite repeated calls to 911 the Rollingwood watch finally called their councilman who called the Police Chief.
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The Flint newspapers said there had been “little trouble,” but another eyewitness account says:

all I have heard is how wonderful and peachy everything was today. Myself, along with others that witnessed what happened tonight, are quite angry that these thugs are endangering the Back to the Bricks.

I saw the fear in people’s eyes and it was very tense as everyone was rushing away with their families. I came home and listened to the scanner and heard the anxiousness in the officers voices as they were instructed to “walk shoulder to shoulder down Saginaw” in riot control maneuvers.
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FBI crime statistics rank Flint as one of the most dangerous cities in America. Some wear that as a badge of honor. Others say it is not happening at all.

Detroit and Flint might get all the glory, but let’s not forget about Grand Rapids. National talk show host Jesse Lee Peterson gives a speech: “How many white people in this audience are afraid of being called racist?” At almost every speech, almost every white person raises their hand.

Kyle Rogers is one of the few reporters in America who
would not have to raise his hand. Rogers writes for the Examiner.com and his story on repressed racial violence in Grand Rapids, Michigan, rocketed around the Internet:

You didn’t hear about this is the media, but on the weekend of March 24th and March 25th at least seven white people were brutally beaten by mobs of blacks in Grand Rapids, MI. Five of the victims filed police reports. At least two other victims exist, and there are probably others. The local media has refused to report the cruel attacks and the authorities are resisting any serious charges.

I talked with one of the victims, 37 year old Jacob Palasek. He is a full time student and does computer work part time. He was attacked by a wolf pack of thugs on the corner of Sixth Street and Broadway in Grand Rapids, Michigan just after midnight on March 25th. The location is a mix of stores, offices, and residential neighborhoods. Jacob lives near where he was attacked.

As he was walking to his apartment, he saw three black males loitering. One was on a bicycle. The suspect on the bicycle rode up beside him. Suddenly the thug smashed him in the side of the head with a chain. He was hit two or three more times in the head with the chain before he broke loose and ran to the nearest home.

All three of the black males then attacked him on the porch. They yelled “this is what you deserve you white piece of shit.” Jacob was hit in the head with the large chain more times.

All seven known victims were attacked within about six blocks of where Jacob was attacked. The victims were in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. Some of the victims were attacked during the day in broad daylight.
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Seven known episodes of black mob violence in one small town and one small period, that adds up to one big story.

Memo to Kyle Rogers and Jesse Lee Peterson: You need to work on those happy faces.

So many riots. So little time.

S
ome riots slip through the cracks. Rather than ignore them, let’s take a look.

Labor Day is a busy time for black mob violence and lawlessness in Erie, Pennsylvania. At the end of each summer they hold a festival called Celebrate Erie Days in the downtown area. In 2012, as in the past, hundreds of “unruly teens” disrupted several nights of the festival with violence and mayhem. “The teens kept Erie police busy for three hours” on the first night of the festival. “Eight juveniles were taken into custody.”
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Twitter traffic and local websites identified the teens as black, even if local media did not.

Down in Savannah in August 2012, a white man was beaten unconscious by several black men. Andrew Quade and his black girlfriend were walking through Ellis Square in downtown Savannah when the group of black men jumped him, “beating him and leaving him barely conscious.” Quade said that he didn’t
want to freak out on the group that was taunting him and his girlfriend. But “everything happened so quickly,” he said. “He doesn’t even have a clear picture in his mind of the fight.”
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Savannah Chief of Police Willie Lovett does not call it a hate crime because that is a “serious” label that could “taint our community unfairly.”

Also in August 2012 several black men in Sacramento taunted a “gay” man on the public transit. “When the man tried to get off the train … the suspects repeatedly punched him.”
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In September 2012 in Buffalo a woman was “mercilessly beaten by six to ten people” after she tried to help a deli owner stop a mob of black shoplifters. The woman “suffered broken bones above her right eye and a fractured nose after being assaulted by some of these teenage boys.” Of course they don’t identify the race of the boys even though the attack is on video. They are all black.
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In the two weeks after the deli store beat down there were two other episodes of black mob violence at nearby Buffalo State College where three people were robbed. “Three young men were jumped” by a mob of black males “who punched, kicked, and robbed the victims. One of the victims was then shot in the arm.” Police did not return calls for comment on a description of the suspects.
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In Illinois for the second time in 2012, a group of black women assaulted their waitress at the Fairview Heights Red Lobster. According to a witness, they thought she was coming by too often to fill up their water glasses. One of them threw a water glass at the server, hitting her “in the back of the head. The
witness said as the server turned around, the customer hit her in the face with one of the dessert books.”
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In Durham, North Carolina, black mobs are suspects in almost two dozen assaults and robberies since 2010. The attacks have taken place at the recently opened American Tobacco Trail, a seven-and-a-half-mile walking and running track that goes through Durham.

The race of the attackers was not reported in the press. Even so, Police Chief Jose Lopez has it all figured out:

“The simple assaults don’t appear to be motivated by robbery,” Lopez said. “It appears to be motivated more by mischievousness and the locations where they find individuals who are clearly running by themselves.”

“So if you look at that, versus the thousands of people who run the trail on a daily basis, it’s pretty safe,” he said.
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Lopez said crimes on running trails occur throughout the United States. Mimimize. Explain it away. Next.

Out in Tacoma, during Halloween 2012, a group of six to ten black people used a gun to rob several families of cash and candy and cell phones in six separate robberies.
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Five people were arrested, at least one of whom was under house arrest at the time of the crime. The local paper removed any comments from readers that pointed to the race of the criminals. The liveliest discussion took place on Facebook. Colleta Pearson identified herself as a family member of one of the accused robbers.

I ain’t saying what they did was right but I got my brother an the homies bacc no matter what an like I said the news an the newspaper ain’t telling what really happen. … An at the end of the day y’all would be sitting in the courts sticcing up for your family!!!! Y’all act like y’all fam just perfect I know for sure someone in y’all family has hit houses or something!!!
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In Rockford, Illinois, the local paper is not quite so squeamish in describing a flash rob attack at Dick’s Sporting Goods:

About eight black men and women entered the store, toting garbage bags, which they filled with an unspecified number of coats. When the employees approached to chase them out of the store, two of them took out vials of Mace but did not spray anyone.
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In November 2009 Denver police arrested thirty-two black people in the downtown area for a series of racial crimes against primarily white males—twenty-eight of them.

This was probably the most organized and sustained race riot in the country. Right there in the middle of the Rocky Mountains.

When I told my friends I was working on a book about a tsunami of racial violence in America over the last two years, they all said, “I haven’t heard about that.” When writer and attorney John Bennett told me Denver was the site of one of the most organized and violent and sustained examples of racial violence in the country, I told him: “I haven’t heard about that.”

People in Denver remember the story. Even if the rest of us do not. In 2009 Denver police arrested thirty-five black men for systematically beating white and Latino men over a period of four months. Some people were hurt badly.

In September 2011 the CBS affiliate ran a headline on their web page: “Motive Unclear in Attack by Group of Teens.” They identified the “teens” as black or Hispanic.
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In July 2011 a gang of four or more black men conducted
a series of assaults and robberies in downtown Denver with baseball bats.
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In June 2012 a black police officer trying to break up a fight among black people at a free jazz concert was shot and killed. The suspected killer’s aunt, Roxanne Shaw, expressed shock and disbelief that the boy who attended East High School could have killed someone. “I don’t think he did that,” she said. “I didn’t ever know that boy to carry a gun.”
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And the beat goes on.

You are not going to believe this either: They are not very nice.

I
know the breed. I was a reporter. I know lots of reporters. I taught a class at the University of California for reporters on research and writing and interviewing. I’ve done everything from getting a guy out of prison to trying to kill a story that won the Pulitzer. (My bad. Sorry, Dave.) I ghostwrite for national columnists when they get sick. I won lots of awards. I party with them in Vegas. I tell you this just to let you know, reporters are squirrelly.

Think of the most liberal person you know. Your average reporter makes that person look like Bill Buckley. So when you roll into a town with a book that challenges some of their most deeply held (and unexamined) liberal beliefs, they do not like it. Reporters confuse what they like and dislike with what is good and bad, with what is true and false. That is what I found out from dozens of reporters during the many interviews for the first edition of this book.