Lestat de Lioncourt

Guess you missed this part of the article:

"The tiny city of 12,000 is known for its scenic Lake Michigan beaches. It is plagued with high unemployment, poverty and endless financial troubles. There is little money for youth programs and schools. 33% of the residents have incomes below $10,000."

No...there was no emphasis on the issues afflicting that community.

And those were...?

I repeat this question, since when is reporting the facts = to racism?

And those are...?

And those were...?

And those are...?

Last time I checked people were innocent until proven guilty. So "allegedly" is the appropriate term to use when making unproven (i.e., unanswered) "allegations" against another.

Tell me something that I don't already know.

Young black male with criminal history is in possession of drugs and riding his bike in a reckless manner at 120mph trying to elude police, crashes into house and dies. In a town that has a majority black population, a riot follows destroying property and injuring others, specifcally whites. How many different media sources do you want to tell the same factual events that obviously happened?

And what exactly makes the editors and/or authors of Adversity.net 'unreliable?'

You mean anyone who doesn't subscribe to your confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance is an idiot, right?

Yeah...and? Did you read the discaimer regarding that logo? Obviously not

Please...Nice fallacious argument there

Well now if that wasn't an ignorantly dismissive comment...could you possibly be anymore obtuse to the realities of racial issues that incidents like this present in our society!?!

Lestat

Phoenixstar

The article does haev a racial undertone no doubt. The entire incident could have been reported on without all the extra added comments. It was wrong for the guy to run from the police. In no way to I agrre with him running from the police at all. But one has to look at it from all sides. If you had grown up in a town where walking down the street can get you arrested and chased by the police just for being black(I grew up in a town like this, I am speaking from experience), what would be your first thought through your mind. Is it logical to think that way to the everyday person, of course not. But this is the kind of life these people have had to endure period. One can always judge from the outside looking in but until you have had to experience it for 18 years of your life you will always hold a biased look on things. Once again I do not condone any of the violence that happened because of this but to try to paint the people as savages is inappropriate.

Also stop with all the government assistance talk. The fact is all people of color in this country are a minority. Which means that someone is the majority, who do you think are mostly on the govermental assistance programs. It is not the minority, statistics will tell you that.

York

this whole racism thing is out of control. whites are always the racists. it never seems to matter when people of other races stick together, or as in this case go on a rampage.

somehow its ok for me to be coming down the street and be assaulted because im white. i red some other article of something called "beat up whitie day". apparently its like a holiday where non whites go looking for whites to beat up on.

smugg

Your point being that when the Germans invaded Belgium in WWII that was also the battle of Waterloo?

Wow. Since it's on the Internet it must be true. Or is it that facts aren't as important as falling in line with your racist notions? Sorry, the numbers just don't add up. Why, after all, is average income so much lower for minorities (according to the U.S. Census Bureau) if they are 'overhired' as the site claims? Why does the average unemployed white person receive almost twice the income than a black one if they are not the primary beneficiaries of the 'trillions of dollars' spent on welfare?

Give me a break.

Gosh, adversity.net sure likes to accuse everyone (especially minorities) of racism. What a sham.

I tell you what, you correct my version of history -- show me the errors of my way -- and then we can fix yours. Unless you just want to call it ignorant without adding anything useful.

In which case I'll just reply in kind:

I know you are but what am I?

livius drusus

They are not protesting prohibition. They are drunk, disorderly and spoiled by the knowledge that will never get treated in any way comparably to a crowd of black people doing the exact same thing, or even get called rioters for that matter. Tim Fay, the editor of the article linked to in the OP, was in furious high dudgeon that according to him, "to date, not a one of our televised media outlets (CNN, NBC, ABC, FoxNews, CBS) has acknowledged in any way that there is a racial component to [the Benton Harbor] story."

Oh it's palpably ludicrous, of course, as even a cursory glance at the websites of those media outlets will confirm that the story is consistently framed in racial terms, but I wonder if Mr. Fay is so insisent on making the obvious racial inferences in the case of the overwhelmingly white college beer and sports riots. Because I have never once seen the Chapel Hill "victory celebration" riot described in racial terms unless it was by somebody pointing out that if the same shit happened at Morehouse every time the home team won, there would be federal troops lining the roads.


Far, far less than white students, actually, yes. In an NHSA study on heavy alcohol use among young adults, "Whites had the highest rate of heavy alcohol use (16 percent) of any racial/ethnic group, followed by American Indians/Alaska Natives and Hispanics (both at 10 percent), and blacks and Asians (both at 6 percent)." The more specific Harvard College Alcohol Study, found that 16% of black students binge drink while 49% of white students do.

But stats aside, the article in the OP was claiming the mass-media was somehow coddling the rioters by not drawing the racial conclusions the editor has drawn, but I've seen college beer riot after sports riot presented on TV as little more than high spirits run amock and every single flushed and whooping face has been white. There may have been black students in there somewhere, but I've never seen them. The race of the rioters is never mentioned when it's identifiably white. It's not underemphasized. It's invisible.


The question at hand is not whether riots are a reasonable method of effectuating positive change. The op and title of this thread clearly state that the Benton Harbor rioters were overreacting or playing the race card or getting suckered by rabble rousers like Jesse Jackson, that it was senseless savagery.

My point is that white people burning and looting because they got an open container citation is senseless on a whole other scale. I think that rage, although self-defeating in many ways, is still a perfectly understandable reaction to despair. If it's response blown out of all proportion Lestat seeks, he need look no further than his local college campus the night of a big game.

Loren Pechtel

Note, however, that such things weren't racial. This case was.

Lestat de Lioncourt

Nice straw man fallacy there smugg

Hey, what's good for the goose is good for the gander! As I recall, you were the first to accuse another of being ignorant with your obnoxious reply giving them your version of a history lesson. Now when someone does the same thing to you you cry foul

Yeah...that's what I thought.

Until you grow up and act your age, don't count on me responding to such juvenile pontifications of yours.

Lestat

Lestat de Lioncourt

EXACTLY!

Lestat

Monkeybot

Don't you think the extreme poverty of Benton Harbor might have had a tiny bit of influence on the case as well?

Nikolai

Can you provide a list of companies which use strict quotas when hiring? You do realize that's illegal, according to the recent Supreme Court rulling?