It has been my experience that explicitly not mentioning the race (in these multiple events, young black, well dressed people) or religion (in the case of too many to count “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” events) is a liberal approach to issues.
There have been two incidents that I am aware of. Las Vegas now Manhattan. I have been hearing from other people that there have been multiple incidents of this type in their city/town, but never appeared on the news. This problem may be more widespread than is being reported, but I will stick to the two that I know of, and those have video associated with them that does not lie.
Just as one can be politically incorrect and say with a fairly high degree of accuracy (in reality) that not all muslims are terrorists, but an exceedingly high proportion of terrorists in the world are muslims, one can also say with a high degree of real accuracy that not all well-dressed young blacks participate in vandalizing flash-mobs, but that a high proportion of filmed vandalizing flash-mobs are composed of well dressed young black people.
I would maintain that multiple events on opposite side of the country that have the following characteristics in common ARE noteworthy:
1.) Large groups (called a “flash mob”) converged on an area to steal, coordinated by social media or cell phones.
2.) Mode of operation was the same: walk in as if there is nobody there and brazenly steal anything that can have hands laid on it, and walk out laughing as if there is no chance of being caught or prosecuted.
3.) All perpetrators seen in the video are well dressed, young, and black. 100%. Not 50%. Not 75%, but fully 100%.
In neither Las Vegas or now, Manhattan, does the composition of the surrounding neighborhood approach 100% black. But ALL the young, well dressed people in the videos at both locations are black. In the Las Vegas event, apparently it was just theft. This time, they began to vandalize the place.
I have five questions for you, LightningStriker2010:
1.) Is the completely homogenous composition (race, mode of operation and otherwise) of these two events thousands of miles apart in any way important, or is it just simply a coincidence?
2.) Does pointing out this fact imply that all young, well dressed black people participate in this type of crime?
3.) Are there multiple identical situations involving other categories of people (white, asian, etc) that are not making the news?
4.) Does pointing out this homogeneity (on the basis of solid video evidence) of mode of operation and racial makeup constitute racism?
5.) Why is the obvious point of the racial makeup being avoided so meticulously by all branches of the media?
I am not making these statements or asking these questions as part of an ad hominem attack on you, LightningStriker2010, I really do want to know your thoughts on these aspects.
The problem is that you imply that this incident is being treated uniquely as warranting a focus on race, yet in ANY posted instance of any individual black person doing ANYTHING wrong, race becomes a prime focus of the thread. Let a black man commit arson (something predominantly done by white males) and see if we don’t see the repeated use of the word “Amish” of “black thug”. On the other hand, when a group of white high school misfits randomly shoots up their school (or when a white guy randomly shoots up innocent strangers in a gym, restaurant, etc.), race never becomes the primary focus of the discussion despite such behavior coming predominantly from white males. When Van Jones expressed that this is something done predominantly by white kids, this site exploded with vitriol (and no, I am definitely NOT a fan of Jones).
The funny thing is this. Let an organization be formed for the purpose of addressing problems overrepresented in or are nearly exclusive to black America and we get cries of racism. If someone forms the “National Organization to Instill Morals on Black Youth”, there will be cries of racism and folks will express that whites have issues with morals also. People rant over and over about blacks voting Democrat, but when organizations form specifically to increase black conservatives, they are criticized for being race specific. So do you think it a bit unbalanced to decry organizations formed to deal with problems predominant with blacks, yet repeatedly criticize and ridicule blacks for these problems? If all organizations should be race neutral, should not all criticism?
Also, the events being discussed, while unique in style, each falls under the category of shoplifting, and studies have shown that blacks are no more likely to shoplift than whites.
http://www.physorg.com/news5762.html
And actually less likely:
http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/reprint/165/7/905.pdf
So why when 3 shoplifting instances recently utilizing a specific method comes about, we must focus on the race of people less inclined to shoplift in general?