March 31, 2013

"Just don’t say the Chicago police picked on your child, when we were watching all the assault going on, especially by teen women."

A mob of 500 teenagers, supposedly organized via Facebook, hit the city's elite shopping district.

118 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's these immigrants from Latvia and Bhutan that are causing all this flash mob trouble.

Peter

Bob said...

"Tweren't Mormons." - - Del Gue

YoungHegelian said...

"Why would any resident of Chicago ever need a gun?"

bagoh20 said...

It's good to see young people coming together, organizing, trying to make a difference in their city. People who say kids are too isolated with their electronics, or too apathetic should be relieved to see this activism and energy.

Thug life under a big tent.

bagoh20 said...

There are parts of the country where this would never happen, because it would be suicidal. Dangerous wild west places with right-wing nut-jobs who think they are cowboys.

Fritz said...

Can we force Canada to take Chicago?

Ann Althouse said...

They attacked a cop on a horse. How stupid is that?

Sorun said...

I predict that "teens" and "youths" will be regarded as racist code words in the near future.

YoungHegelian said...

@Althouse,

They attacked a cop on a horse. How stupid is that?

I dunno, maybe about as stupid as the bunch in SE DC some years ago that chanted "Black Power! Black Power!" when they were stopped in mid-riot by a security force provided by the Nation Of Islam!

john said...

Was the horse pushed over? That would have been really bad.

Unless it had some teens to cushion its fall.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

This is the trouble you get when kids find their Easter candy early and eat it all at once.

DADvocate said...

If those scum of the earth rich people who own those stores would just give the kids what's truly and rightfully there's, this sort of thing wouldn't happen.

eddie willers said...

I predict that "teens" and "youths" will be regarded as racist code words in the near future.

That gets a big "Bingo!" from me.

3john2 said...

The lead paragraph in the story described the teens as "mischievous". I think the word they were looking for is "malicious."

CWJ said...

This happened in Kansas City as well at our own elite shopping district. The larger community was not amused. Police presence and "teen" rousting has increased proportionately.

Its news and the police spring into action only when tourists and the economically sheltered are endangered. It has always been so.

Anonymous said...

Why is the word BLACK missing from the news reports? White kids simply do not act like this, the closest we have are Occupy types.

CWJ said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
rhhardin said...

It's the Obama economic model.

Hit the guy on the head and take his stuff.

eddie willers said...

If those scum of the earth rich people who own those stores would just give the kids what's truly and rightfully there's, this sort of thing wouldn't happen.

As the wonderful and deep thinking philanthropist Celine Dion once said: "Let dem touch dem things!"

Fernandinande said...

Ann Althouse said..."They attacked a cop on a horse. How stupid is that?"

Struggling students!

R.A. Crankbait said..."The lead paragraph in the story described the teens as "mischievous"."

That word was in side-bar link to the story, but disappeared.

rhhardin said...

"Youths" is already taken, for Muslims.

Anonymous said...

I don't think an essential feedback mechanism is in place.

Darwin shrugged.

Anonymous said...

Just wait until Organization for America really gets going!

Fun times.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

This explains why the government is cornering all the ammo. Be afraid if you live anywhere near these cesspits full of roaming animals.

Methadras said...

Ann Althouse said...

They attacked a cop on a horse. How stupid is that?


You just just like Inga there for a moment. Black teen mobs become a hive mind in that they no longer sustain a rational basis for their societal behavior. So attacking a cop on a horse is no different to them than breathing. But you are so whitey white white that you can't even call if for what it is. A parasitic infection of low class, low IQ mouth-breathers that breed more of them and we are asked to support it all.

I think I'm finally seeing you for the person you are Prof.

Ipso Fatso said...

Lake Forest-take back your children!!!! Naperville quit sending us your youthful scum!!!! The white man hates elite shopping districts!!!!

bagoh20 said...

"roaming animals."

Those are "the children" that we sacrifice everything for. Letting them do this uninhibited would be more efficient. Mob theft is "for the children".

Anonymous said...

I mean, aren't these poor underprivileged kids OWED? Where better to reach out and take it than Michigan Avenue?

It's not a crime. It's social justice!

Anonymous said...

Where's Judge Dredd when you need him?

bagoh20 said...

Methadras calls out Ann as the she-wolf of the UW.

Anonymous said...

http://heartiste.wordpress.com/2013/03/31/black-men-have-much-to-discuss-about-murderous-crime/#comment-423887


Witness the truth, bitches.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I believe the children are our future.

We are so screwed.

Anonymous said...

We's all know white people did this! RAcist! Obama! Hope and Change!

SomeoneHasToSayIt said...

I understand the hesitancy to use the adjective Black. That word is no longer sufficient to use here because it unfairly includes good , law-abiding Black folks, rather than just these feral hoodlums.

But it would also be nice to have a word that alerts folks to obvious external physical characteristics so one can be on heightened alert at the proper time, in the presence of the sort of folks one should be on high alert for.

How about we bring back "Negro"? As in "Negro youths went on a rampage . . .", or "large groups of Negro teens descended on the Miracle Mile last night . . .", to be used only for these types of trash, and not to include good Black folks who, when they thus see the word Negro, know we are not painting them with the same brush.

Alex said...

Why won't the media discuss the race of the perps?

Alex said...

Lots of she-wolfs around these here parts. Yowzers!

Jim said...

Paging the Childress sisters.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
edutcher said...

The animals get out of hand like this, every now and again. It happens every few years in Philadelphia, although they usually wait for warmer weather.

If Tippytoes wants order in the Second city, he's gonna have to call out Solly an' da boys.

Ann Althouse said...

They attacked a cop on a horse. How stupid is that?

Cossacks are an idea whose time has come again.

AllenS said...

One thing that these youths can look forward to, is passing grades in school. The administrators, principals and teachers will make sure of that. Win - win.

n.n said...

Redistributive and, possible, retributive change. Their behavior was and is sanctioned by none other than our president. Their behavior was and is sanctioned by 51% of the population. This incident is merely a local dysfunctional convergence.

Alex said...

nn - remember Obama said he could imagine Trayvon as his own son.

Anonymous said...

My significant others brother in Quincy, Ill wants the everything south of Chicago to secede. There is a clear precedent in West Virginia seceding from Virginia in1862.

Sorun said...

We didn't use the word "teenagers" much back when I was one (1970s). To me, teenagers are the likes of Fonzie, Potsie, Richie and Ralph.

furious_a said...

They attacked a cop on a horse. How stupid is that?

If the police yield the streets (e.g., Paris' banlieus, Rodney King riots) to the mobs, not stupid at all. Entirely rational, in fact.

n.n said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
n.n said...

Alex:

Obama is an opportunist. His obsession with skin color is selective. He favors the color which can be most easily exploited at any given time and place.

bagoh20 said...

"remember Obama said he could imagine Trayvon as his own son.".

I was right there in the loop last month for a few days, and there were vans driving around with megaphones calling for an uprising over Travon's "murder". Maybe this was it. In my opinion, this little riot is exactly what happened to Zimmerman on a smaller scale, and if decent Chicagoan had guns, there would have been either more Travons or no riot at all. I suspect the later. Even teens don't want shot, but they knew that was not gonna happen, so let's fire up some blunts and get our thug on.

kjbe said...

This explains why the government is cornering all the ammo.

I've heard the shortage is from increased private citizen purchases (that was the reason a local law enforcement agency gave, anyway).

Phil 314 said...

I hope Rahm doesn't let this crisis go to waste

virgil xenophon said...

Just spirited "youts," tht's all...nothing to see here..

bagoh20 said...

I think it's completely conceivable that white teens could do the same thing, and there probably were some involved in this. If my kid was involved, he'd be damned sorry about it, and would commit himself to some kind of community service to make up for it, or learn what it's like without any money, car, insurance, gifts, etc from Dad.

I raised a son (not my own), and there is no way he would have done anything like this even at his worst. I think he would have been talking people out of participating. He's no saint - he smoked pot, drank plenty of beer underage, etc., but he would never attack or rob someone - never. I'm not even 1% unsure of that.

chickelit said...

Alex said...
Why won't the media discuss the race of the perps?

Is there any proof the perps are African Americans? Maybe this is all a set-up by bigoted whites.

edutcher said...

Alex said...

nn - remember Obama said he could imagine Trayvon as his own son.

Then 500 who could have been Choom's sons were acting like animals.

rcocean said...

Ah the Youts of America, no longer slackers.

rcocean said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

Ann Althouse said...

They attacked a cop on a horse. How stupid is that?


Unfortunately, the Police lack sabres and the training to use them.

In a riot, you need to get agggressive enough, early enough to survive. Get that Horsey moving, start swinging that Sabre and ride free. Going to be hard on some locals however...

The scene from Dr Zhivago where the recruits and officers meet the deserters out on the road...

rcocean said...

It couldn't happen to a nicer city.

PianoLessons said...

to bagoh20: Great comment.

Did you ever believe Clockwork Orange would become like....real in our lives?

I always did. That movie scared the hell out of me in my younger days.

So did George Orwell's 1984.

Good Grief!

chickelit said...

Ann Althouse said...They attacked a cop on a horse. How stupid is that?

The horse probably touched the same nerve that Ann Romney's horse did.

My teenage daughter isn't gonna like this when she hears about it. This is how the left loses the youth vote--one-by-one.

PianoLessons said...

It's very interesting to check out the Chicago Tribune reporting of this mob action....

Reminds me of the novel/movie "Jaws" where the mayor refused to let the people know about .....you know....that big bad great white shark cruising their shore for human appetizers.

George M. Spencer said...

I love the way the anchorwoman introduces the story by calling it "mischief." La la la.

The reporter's name? "Courtney Gooseman." You can't make up this stuff.

And she interviews a "community activist." What job is that?

The real story will be to return to it in a week or a month and see how many convictions there were and how many of these "teens" spent time in jail.

AllenS said...

Hopefully, after these youths return to their respective neighborhoods, they can resume killing each other.

bagoh20 said...

PianoLessons,

That's spooky. All these years, I never watched Clockwork Orange, but I kid you not, it was on last night and I watched it for the first time on some cable station. Not as weird as I expected, but then nothing is now.

Mary Martha said...

"Is there any proof the perps are African Americans?"

There is plenty of video.

That is the thing with everyone having a video camera on their phone - it's harder to cover up these kinds of stories.

rcocean said...

They weren't black - it was some Puerto Rican guy.

edutcher said...

The Drill SGT said...

They attacked a cop on a horse. How stupid is that?

Unfortunately, the Police lack sabres and the training to use them.

In a riot, you need to get agggressive enough, early enough to survive. Get that Horsey moving, start swinging that Sabre and ride free. Going to be hard on some locals however...

The scene from Dr Zhivago where the recruits and officers meet the deserters out on the road...


As I said, Cossacks are an idea whose time has come again.

www.pointsandfigures.com said...

I live very close to this intersection. I heard it was organized on Twitter. There were sirens all night. Every spring, mobs of African American gangbangers invade the Gold Coast of Chicago

richard mcenroe said...

So no one even thought to bring up "conspiracy to commit a felony"?

richard mcenroe said...

"I think it's completely conceivable that white teens could do the same thing, and there probably were some involved in this."

If there were, those would have been the faces of the arrestees on the news coverage.

richard mcenroe said...

White House Statement: "Those business owners and shoppers acted stupidly..."

edutcher said...

richard mcenroe said...

So no one even thought to bring up "conspiracy to commit a felony"?

In the immortal words of Paul Harvey, "This is chicago".

Anonymous said...

St. George: I love the way the anchorwoman introduces the story by calling it "mischief." La la la.

Oh man, those first two paragraphs deserve a Pulitzer Prize:

The warmest day of the year so far brings hundreds of mischievous teens to Michigan Avenue.

Police are calling it ‘mob action’.


Quotes around "mob action". No quotes for "mischievous" or "teens". It's meta-irony, or something.

bagoh20 said...

O.T., but: I started reading Althouse in mid-2008. How did this blog written by this woman become so popular with small government types? That's not a criticism in any way - just the opposite - since I like both Althouse and her commenters immensely, but I'm just wondering how that happened. Was it always that way, or was there a transition at some point?

AllenS said...

How did this blog written by this woman become so popular with small government types?

We took the place over. Kinda like an internet mob action. Mischievous, even

Anonymous said...

bagoh20: O.T., but: I started reading Althouse in mid-2008. How did this blog written by this woman become so popular with small government types?

Comment section block-busting. Y'all moved in, and...there went the neighborhood!

YoungHegelian said...

@bagoh20,

How did this blog written by this woman become so popular with small government types?

It's an old, angry, white fart thing. You wouldn't understand.

Actually, you probably do. I don't ever remember a time that the forum was full of liberals who got driven off, and counting my lurking time, I've been here a damn long time. There are lots of comrades who have gone on to other things, but more were conservative than were liberal.

I think it's because Prof Althouse got a lot of her early traffic from Instapundit, and she proved so congenial (e.g. "I've found that conservatives are looking for converts & liberals are looking for heretics") that we communally decided to overstay our welcome.

Gene said...

"teen women"

Man, it's astounding how these community activists talk. They are so concerned about empowering teenage females before their time they talk like complete loons. If you're going to call girls "teen women," why not refer to toddlers as "matriarchs-in-waiting"?

Hell, better yet file lawsuits against any newspaper or TV station that calls a young female a girl. The said thing is they'd probably win the case, or at the very least force reporters to attend sensitivity training in which they wear "white privilege" arm bands.

edutcher said...

bag, YoungHegelian has it mostly right, but I think 2 things she did helped enormously.

The first was she shared her courtship, marriage, and honeymoon with all and sundry. She was clearly the happiest woman on the planet and she charmed and delighted a great many people. That sort of thing is very contagious.

The second was her reportage of the whole Scott Walker thing in true, "Just the facts, ma'am", style.

fivewheels said...

Part of the Althouse appeal, as I remember it, was that she was mostly sensible on the war(s) despite still being a hippie at heart. It makes her interesting and shows she's capable of independent thought, for those who value that kind of thing. That independent thought thing is also why she's despised by liberals even though her politics are usually closer to them than to us.

Carol said...

Althouse will actually consider the other side's argument. Like, give it some consideration, as if conservatives could possibly have rationality.

That's extremely rare in the left.

Temujin said...

Four things I can say with confidence:

1) These are future Democrat voters. Even if they don't know who or what a congressman is, they'll get paid to show up at the polls at some future election.

2) People like Pres. Obama and some of his personal cabinet and Czar selections (Van Jones) nurture and produce this kind of behavior. They want this sort of unease of civil society.

3) 40+ years of Teachers Unions over education, coupled with the liberal attitudes that engender lack of respect for anything that remotely resembles tradition....and you have...this.

4) You know what I'm saying is true. If you don't get it yet, you will when it hits you in the face. Maybe.

cubanbob said...

"How about we bring back "Negro"? As in "Negro youths went on a rampage . . .", or "large groups of Negro teens descended on the Miracle Mile last night . . .", to be used only for these types of trash, and not to include good Black folks who, when they thus see the word Negro, know we are not painting them with the same brush."

Modify with naughty then it would read "large groups of naughty Negro teens". And then send in the Cossacks with sabers drawn on the naughties be they Negros or Caucasians or whatever.

n.n said...

bagoh20:

She usually acts as an impartial judge, who does not avoid controversial topics, and invites each party to express their opinion. It's our job to characterize her posts, comments, and judgment, thereby offering commentary which is most appealing to her sensibility, and hopefully win the trial over which she presides.

Now, who is the decent man or woman? It is clearly a subjective classification, which varies with a diverse set of circumstances, actors, and interests.

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

This is just Saturday night fun - Obamastyle!

If someone doesn't agree with you, then you've got to get in their face and make them see the light!

If someone has something you want, they didn't earn that! You take what you need!

Strelnikov said...

Gee, from the video it looks like most to all of these "teens" and "juveniles" belonged to one particular group. You know, the one that can only be named in praise. That would explain why this obvious "who" element of basic reporting is ignored, as it always is in this situation.

lemondog said...

Flash mob

Happy Easter

edutcher said...

fivewheels said...

Part of the Althouse appeal, as I remember it, was that she was mostly sensible on the war(s) despite still being a hippie at heart. It makes her interesting and shows she's capable of independent thought, for those who value that kind of thing. That independent thought thing is also why she's despised by liberals even though her politics are usually closer to them than to us.

Crusty Conservative coating, creamy hippie love chick center.

Michelle Dulak Thomson said...

Sorun,

I predict that "teens" and "youths" will be regarded as racist code words in the near future.

Aren't they already? In Europe, at least, when there is rioting about cartoons of Muhammad, or about Israel, or about any number of other subjects, the people setting cars on fire are invariably generic "youths" in press reports. Everyone know which "youths" are meant, and because everybody knows, you don't have to say what can't be said. But the result is that "youth" has a race-and-religion tag on it now.

edutcher said...

From the sidebar, the headline says it all.

Michael said...

I predict that "teens" and "youths" will be regarded as racist code words in the near future.

Yes, but there is some racial self identification as well. One of those arrested was Marquell Hicks. Just as the names of the arrested in France give away the cohort so too do the names invented in our very own hoods.

Michael said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
SteveR said...

I'm not qualified to say for sure but in this instance the use of the term African-American seems like an insult to both Africans and Americans.

Gene said...

Temujin, I think what we are seeing today is the inevitable side effects of the Great Society. Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned back in the seventies, when the inner city illegitimacy rate was a mere 25%, that you can't easily raise successful and productive young males (or apparently females either) without marriage and a father in the home. The result, he said, would be a society which is asking for "chaos" and "will get it."

Well here we are 40 years down the road, the black illegitimacy rate is 75%, and the chaos isn't merely flash mobs and home invasions, it's also multiple murders on Chicago streets every day.

In the last couple of weeks I've read two stories in which young black males broke into suburban houses where women were home alone (or with their kids). In both cases the women retreated to locked upstairs rooms and in both cases the intruders tried to break the doors down, at which point the women shot them with revolvers--unfortunate but still far better than the alternative.

Michael Moore thought he was exposing what he considered the deep racist secret that whites were buying guns to protect themselves from blacks. Well, for crying out loud, anyone who doesn't prepare for (the growing possibility) that increasingly numerous and dangerous young men (enabled by the Obama administration's indifference to black-on-white crime) might invade his house and attack his wife is a fool.

Anonymous said...

Doesn't sound like 500 to me. Probably 50.

fivewheels said...

Why would you say that based on nothing? Estimates last night at the time it was happening came in around 300. There were 30 arrests, so clearly it was a lot more than 50.

500 may seem high, but it's not outlandish given the mobs that have been organized the last few summers at this same L station.

Gahrie said...

Doesn't sound like 500 to me. Probably 50.

And everyone knows that 50 kids running riot through the streets attacking people, businesses and cops is no big deal.

Synova said...

Wow... people who don't like the way Althouse commentators express themselves should read the comments at the link to see what racism looks like.

Discussing that, perhaps, the teens were black and the assault victims white (if that's the case) isn't racism. And if the news report chose not to include that information to avoid fanning the flames, well they failed on that.

fivewheels said...

The comments are pretty bad on these stories, at every site that covered this mob and every other one the last few summers.

I'm not sure what it means. It could be that people are really that racist. But the whitewashing (sorry, I couldn't think of a synonym) of these flash-mob stories is so frustrating to so many people that it's a pot boiling over with anger about crime. Take the lid off, be honest about what's happening, and maybe the rage doesn't spill over into racism. If it doesn't seem like people are trying to cover things up, we can just talk about what the police can do to protect everyone.

William said...

This kind of action is bound to inspire a lot of ill feeling. Some of that ill feeling could be diminished if responsible blacks criticized these youths with some of the vehemence they directed at George Zimmerman.

Steve Koch said...

These flash mobs are interesting, kind of organized crime light. Wouldn't doubt that text messages play a key role in organizing these groups. They act like a mob but since it is all preorganized, mob might be the wrong name for these groups. Should be straightforward to trace the text msgs to see who organized the event.

If authorities put these perps behind bars, forcing their parents to bail them out, pay for a legal defense, and put these perps on probation at least, it would make this wilding more painful to the perps. The next time they break the law, they would have a prior on their record, making it more likely that they would be punished.

Known Unknown said...

I blame elite shopping districts.

Balfegor said...

They might be black youths but it's not like White youths aren't ever violent. In Seattle years back when there were gangs of anarchist thugs going about smashing things up as some sort of asinine "protest," weren't they Whites? Probably privileged scions of the upper middle classes too.

Ipso Fatso said...

"But the whitewashing...of these flash-mob stories is so frustrating..."

Let's put two and two together. The Chicago Tribune is published where? Chicago. Jesse Jackson Sr. lives where? Chicago.

The Tribune is terrified, as are all white liberals and liberal organizations here, of being accused of being racist, especially by Jackson who carries a great deal of weight in the media and whose seal of approval is vital for their continued approval as a “progressive” outlet. He is the elephant in the room. Conversely, there was a murder of a young white suburban girl several years ago in her home by a black male. If the facts had been reversed, Jackson would have been front and center demanding justice, etc. And the local media like the Tribune would be falling all over themselves to get his comments. He was completely silent and the killer was handled with kid gloves by the local media. This is just a reflection of our society today, sad as it is.

viator said...

"CBS 2 has learned since these charges are misdemeanors, many of those arrested have already been released on I-bonds."

From Chicago news report.

Chicago, soon to follow Detroit into the sink hole of history.

Paco Wové said...

"In Seattle years back ... gangs of anarchist thugs ... some sort of asinine "protest," weren't they Whites?"

Yes, the spiritual predecessors of the Occupy crowd. Well, really, probably some of the same people.

Paco Wové said...

"If authorities put these perps behind bars, forcing their parents to bail them out, pay for a legal defense, and put these perps on probation at least, it would make this wilding more painful to the perps. The next time they break the law, they would have a prior on their record, making it more likely that they would be punished."

Those would be painful punishments to middle- and upper-class youths. I suspect they would not have the same deterrent effect on the criminally-disposed poor.

Steve Koch said...

"Those would be painful punishments to middle- and upper-class youths. I suspect they would not have the same deterrent effect on the criminally-disposed poor."

Do we know that most of the perps are poor? Just because most or all of them are black does not mean that all (or even most) of them are poor.

Anonymous said...

Balfegor: They might be black youths but it's not like White youths aren't ever violent.

In this context I'm not sure what your point is. Are you saying that specifically black "teen" mob violence of this sort hasn't become a problem in various cities of late? Or that it has, but no more so than rioting by middle- and upper-middle class white fools?

One will always be 100% correct when pointing out that "it's not like Group X is never violent", but I'm not sure what this observation adds to the discussion.

(Btw - OT and late to the party but your comments in earlier gay marriage thread were excellent.)

chickelit said...

Chicago police reaction has improved since the last time they were going after (mostly white) youth:

Kids are constantly telling me, for instance, how 'the pigs' caused the 1968 Democratic Convention fiasco in Chicago and the Conspiracy Eight trial which followed. No way. There were no doubt some sadistic policemen brutalizing the demonstrators. Cops are people, and we have our rotten apples. But the majority of us, like the majority of you, would like to come home each night feeling we've done a good job. Only we can't if we're ordered to do a bad job, to act like pigs.
The 1968 Democratic Convention? Mayor Daley--not the kids--provoked us. It's that simple. Take it from someone on the inside.
When the Yippies first started coming in and trying to get permits to sleep out in the park and demonstrate, it was our wise Mayor who went right on TV and orated to this effect:
No bunch of hippies and yippies are going to come into this town and take it over. Our police department knows how to handle people who get out of line!
He made the same waves in private that he did in public. And every policeman, high and low, felt the backwash. 'Daley wants us to keep the Convention quiet at any cost,' one of my superiors told us. 'Kick in their asses if you have to.'
Not that some of the kids weren't deliberately trying to provoke violence. Not that some of them weren't high on drugs. Not that a lot of them weren't kids at all, but forty-year-old guilt-ridden liberals looking for purpose and excitement. But if you really want to know where it all really started, who is really guilty for the 1968 Democratic Convention fiasco, don't put it on the pigs.

Blame the farmer.
link

Steve Koch said...

Anglelyne,

Nearly everybody has been jumping on the racial aspect of these flash mobs. Maybe they are right, maybe they are wrong. It seems to me that kids of other races may start doing the same thing.

I am not trying to make excuses but it just seems to me that kids of any race might do the same thing, that is use social media or texting to organize a flash mob to create a scene.

I also think that black crime is not primarily caused by poverty but that the largest single cause is the destruction of the black family, i.e. that so many black children are being raised by single mothers.

Steve Koch said...

When I use the word scene, I mean not only in the sense of a clamorous disruption but also in the sense of a trendy cultural social event or party. Most of the participating kids are not there to commit crimes but want to be at the center of the action, to feel the excitement, to be part of this powerful wilding beast.

fivewheels said...

Sure, other kids might do so. But they didn't Saturday night, or in the dozen or so other mass wildings in Chicago of late. So we were talking about what did happen. Why is that a problem? (Rhetorical question.)

Steve Koch said...

fivewheels said...
"Sure, other kids might do so. But they didn't Saturday night, or in the dozen or so other mass wildings in Chicago of late. So we were talking about what did happen. Why is that a problem?"

It isn't a problem to me (why do you ask?). My point is that this flash mob craze is probably going to spread (if it hasn't already) and be done by kids who aren't black. Do you disagree with something I said (please be specific)?

fivewheels said...

I'm saying there is a specific crime problem that Chicago faces, and that is the subject here, but there are many efforts to deflect attention away from the specific problem. And that is frustrating to many people who are affected by the actual, specific problem.

I lived one block south and one block west of that intersection for six years. Deflection and subject-changing do nothing to help anyone, including the perps in the long run.

Steve Koch said...

Yeah, it must suck to have to deal with it. As I said above, the perps need to be prosecuted.

Beyond that, I am just trying to understand what is going on from a bigger picture perspective, definitely not trying to prescribe solutions or underestimate the pain the perps are inflicting on the good citizens of Chicago. I live in a low crime area that is not anywhere near Chicago so this flash mob thing is more an abstract topic to me than a hot button issue.

Methadras said...

As one of my black brothers from a different mother would say, "Niggers are gonna nig..." and he said it in white voice which made me rofl.