This week, in Minneapolis, a gang of blacks set upon a white guy, stole his cell phone and then beat him senseless when he tried to resist. There is security camera video that shows the complete evolution of the event. It's stomach-churning. It's so horrible that I won't include a link to it here.
One tweet of the video alone has had over 1,000,000 views. There are a couple of local news sites that have covered the story. The national networks haven't touched it.
Elephant Number 1: If the races had been reversed, if it was a gang of whites who beat a black man senseless, the media would be all over it. The local news sites I sampled showed the video, but just described the perps and the victim as "people" even though the video made the situation glaringly obvious.
Elephant Number 2: National crime statistics show how much more common it is to have this happen than the other way around.
Elephant Number 3: National crime statistics show massive racial disparities in crime rates.
Elephant Number 4: Historical crime statistics show that these disparities have grown over the last few decades.
I walked through the responses to the tweet I mentioned above and found what I expected. A couple of respondents discussed the racial disparities. I sampled a few of their profiles and, again, found what I expected: white supremacists.
Elephant Number 5: White supremacists exist, but they are minor players. The biggest account I found had 1200 followers. All of the rest had under 200. Compare that with race-crazed Ta-Nehisi Coates' 1,250,000+ followers as of his exit from Twitter in late 2017.
I'm not going to link to any of the racists' Twitter profiles here or show their graphs because that would distract from the point I'm trying to make.
What The Herd Of Elephants Mean
When there's an elephant in the room in your marriage, things get worse. If you can't talk about a problem, it festers and infects other parts of your relationship. Dittos for crime. Crime gets worse because combating it, either with law enforcement or societal conversations become problematic.
Going backwards in time, you can see that the elephants weren't always there. This isn't a problem bred into the participants, this is a problem that has arisen from the failure to discuss it and try solutions. In terms of this blog post, crime is not racial, but over time it comes to appear racial because we won't talk about it.
From there, it metastasizes into stronger white supremacist movements because you cede the truth to them. They're the only ones talking about the elephant. The fact that no one else is allowed to even admit elephants exist drives people irritated by the elephants into at least considering the white supremacist position.
Worst of all is that life continues to get worse and worse for the communities from which the criminals come. The white dude who got whacked is going to be crippled for life, but there's only one of him. Other whites, of all political stripes, will continue to avoid the worst black neighborhoods and remain relatively safe. Meanwhile, the amoral creatures who did this will return to their homes where they live, work and prey, 24/7.
What's it like to be their neighbors? Their classmates? Their coworkers? What's it like to have them around you and be unable to escape?
What's it like to live there and see that the whole of society makes excuses for them in those rare cases where their crimes are discussed?
What's the point of doing the hard work of self-denial required to live a virtuous life under such circumstances?
What's it like to be trampled by a herd of elephants?
So that attack was in the plaza at Target Field.
ReplyDeleteI don't go to Minneapolis much at all anymore. All I can think of this year is 1 Twins (day)game. These feral youth are more and more a problem. I have heard people getting harassed in broad daylight going to or from the Twins game. I havent't listened yet, but I would guess the Garage Logic podcast Friday will have a lot to say about it.
There are about 3 restaurants and 1 business (MG parts) I will go to in Minneapolis. And the Varsity baseball games, if they play a Minneapolis team. The ruling class there must want it this way, because nothing coming out of either city's governments have made sense in years. St Paul isn't as bad, yet. But the current emperor, er Mayor is working hard to make it as unlivable as MPLS.
Garage Logic covers this at 72 minutes in.
ReplyDeleteIt opens with the debate.
Minneapolis is lost. All due to one party rule.
On a good note, the Mayor and Council are now in favor of more police, probably unqualified people who were rushed through training....
Garage Logic kicks off with this story on Monday's podcast.
ReplyDeleteChief of Police asking for 400 new officers
City council members want to divert police money to "programs"
Robberies are up 46% this year in downtown.