RACE RIOTS
THE RETURN OF BLACK ANGER
TO THE
STREETS OF AMERICA
How it has been ignored, denied and encouraged.
A book proposal with
Two Sample Chapters
Outline and Marketing/PR Plan
by
Colin Flaherty
What the Major Media Says
about Colin Flaherty:
Washington Post.
In June 2011, Colin Flaherty won First Place in the Washington Post Spy Novel Writer’s contest.
David Ignatius, best selling author and Washington Post editor, said Flaherty’s writing was his “strong favorite,” and was “very deft.”
San Diego Union-Tribune.
"It is abundantly clear that Kelvin Wiley would still be locked up were it not for the efforts of an investigative reporter acting on his own, Colin Flaherty, who dug for the facts that should have been seeking to prove Wiley's guilt or innocence."
BloombergBusiness Week
Draw More Attention to Your Business.
By Colin Flaherty
No matter how busy you are, here are three things you can do today to get more attention for your business. In all, it should take less than 30 minutes...
San Diego Business Journal
“Colin Flaherty was one of the best reporters I've ever worked with. He was a total bulldog with great sources. If I could assemble a dream-team reporting staff, Colin would be on it!”
(former) Editor
San Diego Business Journal
San Diego Press Club and
Society of Professional Journalists:
Best of Show -- Two Times
Best Political Reporter -- Two Times
Best Columnist -- Four Times
Best Investigative -- Two Times
And 40 others ...
Proposal
Table of Contents
Executive Summary 5
The Author 12
Market Analysis and PR Plan 14
Approach 25
Sample Chapter 1 26
Sample Chapter 2 29
Chapter Outline 33
What People Are Saying 42
Executive Summary
Race Riots:
The Return of Black Anger
to the
Streets of America.
Race riots are back. Some are afraid to talk about it. At least in public.
Others crave the information, but cannot get it.
Here is what they are missing: In at least 50 episodes since 2010, groups of 50 to 1000 African Americans roam the streets of America, assaulting and killing people.
Newspapers ignore the racial story. Police pretend it is not happening. But blogs and readers’ comments in online newspapers are full of details -- and videos -- of these violent episodes.
And full of anger they are being ignored.
This book will talk to victims, perpetrators and (and perhaps most interesting) the deniers.
The list of cities under attack is long and getting longer -- with some cities suffering more than a dozen attacks in the last year alone: Chicago. Miami. Philadelphia. Las Vegas. New York. Atlantic City. Milwaukee. Charlotte. Mobile. Birmingham. Rochester. Nashville. Peoria. Ames, Iowa.
Iowa?
Yes, at the Iowa State Fair no less.
Peoria? Absolutely: Right in the middle of Middle America.
The facts are simple: Large groups of African-American men are roaming the streets of America with mayhem on their minds. Hurting people.
Badly.
Then people deny the violence was racial.
Awkwardly.
In Wisconsin, hundreds of black people roamed the Riverside section after a recent Fourth of July celebration. They looted stores and assaulted dozens of people at a local park.
The police refused to take their statements and told them to go home. The next day, the police chief said crime was color blind -- and he was going to do everything to arrest this miscreants. Nothing happened.
The Chicago Tribune finally said it just was not going to talk about it because the editors did not think it relevant.
In Iowa, a police report cited two sources saying saying the crowd was attending a “Get Whitey Night” during a violent uprising there. Later, police retracted the Get Whitey Night report -- much to annoyance of witnesses. They did not contradict the facts of the evening. Only what the assailants were chanting.
In Philadelphia, after several violent incidents downtown, the Mayor declared there was nothing to worry about. The Police chief said no one should be frightened. The District Attorney said a ‘high school diploma is the best anti-crime tool.’
Then came the YouTube videos, showing thousands of black people roaming the streets, with violence and injury following. After once incident that left a liberal newspaper editor in the hospital -- the editor who one year before had written that flash mobs were nothing to worry about and not the least racial -- her friends implored police to arrest the people responsible for her injury.
The attackers had melted into a mob of thousands. And no one saw anything. The cops shrugged their shoulders.
From her hospital bed, the newspaper editor said she was unhappy that anyone could say there was any racial motive to the attack. After all, her boyfriend is ‘brown.’
She said anyone who ascribed racial motives to her attack was “creepy.’ Stockholm syndrome, anyone?
A few days later on the local Fox affiliate morning news show, a black TV anchor worried about the “destructive tone” of the comments of people who did not like the violence. She said she was sad that people did not recognize the true nature of the violence. Young people did it. Not black people.
Her guest, a black talk radio show host, said the riots were not racial, but even if they were it was understandable because the state legislature cut back on money for job training, and increased money for prisons.
YouTube answers the question quite nicely.
And it is not just the streets. In Philadelphia, it also extends into the schools. For years, Asian parents complained their children were being brutalized on hundreds of occasions.
School officials dismissed their complaints.
Finally the Department of Justice stepped in and discovered the complaints had merit: Black students were systematically assaulting and abusing Asians. Students and parents.
This was after seven Asian students were hospitalized in the attacks. After one parent suffered serious facial injuries in a separate, but related attack.
Finally, Asian students went on strike. School officials admitted they might have had a problem. So they gave the students pamphlets, instructing them how to avoid racist behavior.
They of course gave the pamphlets to the Asian students.
“the leaders distributed a list of racial slurs and told the students: It's wrong. And you need to know that slurs can escalate quickly and violently.immigrants can be too limited in English to recognize racist language - and the danger it may portend.”
No news on whether any of the perpetrators were arrested, expelled, or even given goofy pamphlets instructing them how to stop beating up Asian minority students.
In Chicago, where flash mob racial violence is even greater than Philadelphia, city officials were unable to do anything to stop it.
Finally, the Superintendent of Police found the cause: He said the real problem was not mob violence, but the NRA committing hate crimes by allowing the spread of guns through black neighborhoods.
He said urban neighborhoods.
And the person really responsible? Sarah Palin, who defended the Second Amendment on her TV show.
Yes, Sarah Palin.
Hard to believe, right? Here it is:
The NRA does not like me, and I’m okay with that!"
"Federal gun laws facilitate the flow of illegal fire arms into our urban centers across this country are killing our black and brown children."
"We've got to get the gun debate back to center with the recognition of who's paying the price for the gun manufactures being rich and living in gated communities."
"I snapped on the TV to relax and what was on TV? Sarah Palin's Alaska. And she was Caribou hunting and the right to bear arms. Why wasn't she at the crime scene with me."
This is happening all over the country.
The Mayor of Chicago, Rahm Emmanuel, closed a Chicago beach prior to Memorial day, saying it was too hot. Calls to 911 released a few days later reveal the presence of a large number of black men causing violence.
Thus the real reason for the beach closure. And you better believe these people made their feelings known on the internet and newspaper blogs and talk radio.
Denial is a beach in Chicago. Let’s rename it: Denial Beach.
It is a pattern repeated all over the country: Racial violence. Then denial. The the truth seeps out. Lather, rinse, repeat.
And most of us know why: To talk about race in America is to risk intellectual and professional banishment because of shifting double standards that can trap even the most careful. Even the most thoughtful.
So we deny.
For others, to talk about systematic black mob violence is to speak to the failure of 50 years of social engineering.
Their failure.
So we deny.
For others, the financial consequences of what happens to a city with out of control racial violence are staggering.
So we deny.
For others still, such as Congressman and former Black Panther Booby Rush, mob violence is a fact of life in the black community and the only reason we are hearing about it now is because it is happening in white neighborhoods. The mother of one of those arrested in Chicago said the same thing.
So what is the big deal? After all, Bobby Rush is the only guy ever to beat Barack Obama in an election.
So we deny.
Jesse Jackson says he crosses the street if he see a group of young black men.
If Brian Williams says that, he is off the air permanently.
Throw in heaping and pervasive doses of white guilt and you get a festering problem that some people are desperate to avoid, deny or explain away.
Thus ending whatever chance we have for talking about what fuels this black anger. If anything.
And what we can do about it. If anything.
While others are desperate for the truth.
Thus a book.
In this book we will take with victims, perpetrators and those in denial to get a full and compelling picture of racial violence in America 2011.
The Author.
Colin Flaherty is an award winning investigative reporter, radio talk show host and owner of a PR and on-line ad agency.
Colin Flaherty was a ghost writer and media advisor for the first Black Chairman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights. He was a staff member and writer for the first Hispanic Republican elected official in San Diego.
In June 2011, Colin Flaherty won First Place in the Washington Post Spy Novel Writer’s contest. David Ignatius, best selling author and Washington Post editor, said the Flaherty’s writing was his “strong favorite,” and was written “very deftly.”
Colin Flaherty today is the owner of an public relations and on-line advertising company. His articles have appeared in more than 1000 newspapers and magazines including the New York Times, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald, and just about every other large paper in America.
Colin Flaherty has appeared as a guest on TV and radio shows across the country, including NPR.
His PR agency has booked guests into more than 5000 talk radio appearances, thousnds of newspaper commentaries and other appearances in local and national media.
His investigative story for the San Diego Reader -- featured in Court TV -- was responsible for the release of a (black) man from prison who was unjustly convicted.
The San Diego Union-Tribune said
"It is abundantly clear that Kelvin Wiley would still be locked up were it not for the efforts of an investigative reporter acting on his own, Colin Flaherty, who dug for the facts that should have been seeking to prove Wiley's guilt or innocence."
According to the Los Angeles Times:
“Time and time again, Flaherty's investigation, which he detailed in an article for the weekly San Diego publication The Reader last fall, raised issues about DiGiovanni's credibility and the thoroughness of the investigation into the incident.
“In retrospect, Wiley said, he felt he got short shrift by the lack of a defense investigation--one that failed to turn up the witnesses that writer Flaherty did on his own, a year later.
“Flaherty's article, Wiley said, turned things around for him.”
Colin Flaherty has won 50 journalism awards for writing and reporting for everything from investigative and government, to features, sports, traveling, business, web sites, columns.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Flaherty
Marketing and PR plan
with Market Analysis.
Let’s talk about what will fuel interest in this book. Then how we can take advantage of that interest.
Create controversy -- then control it.
That is one of most important rules of PR. But there is so much ready made controversy here, the new rule could be ‘Find controversy; then latch on to it.’
I have PR business where I constantly astonish my clients by getting them into local and national press in ways they never imagined.
Here’s why: One, my editors said I was a good writer, but that I could find a story faster and easier than any reporter they ever knew.
Two, we don’t use press releases. Reporters ignore press releases. Didn’t you know?
Yet people still send them, still spend hours of hours on them, and at the end of the day, still complain when reporters ignore them.
If a reporter receives something with his name on it; from a real person, not a flack; and it makes a compelling case in a few seconds, he will read it. I’ve gotten a lot of attention for previously unknown people doing just that -- including two books.
For two recent examples, look up J. Stryker Meyer in the New York Times, and Bill Gunderson in Barron’s.
I would like to bring that same sensibility to this project, allowing us to get more attention and sell more books.
One of the themes throughout this book is that editors and reporters often misreport the nature and extent of these riots. We don’t need to talk about that in the marketing PR section of this proposal, other than to say they might not be thrilled to review a book that says they are doing a lousy job reporting on race.
But that is the strength of this book.
Because for every story where reporters minimize what witnesses saw; where editors wish away what victims reported, there are dozens of accounts on YouTube, talk radio and the readers’s comment section in the newspaper to set the record straight.
People know they are not getting a straight story on racial violence.
Say the word and I will send you links to a dozen -- it could be 50, could be 100 -- stories on the mob riots. The readers comments on these stories are by far the most popular -- and interesting -- of any story in the paper.
By a 20-1 margin, people who leave comments are quite unhappy that the paper is not reporting the full story of the violence.
And this is happening all over the country. All over the internet. Right Now.
My brother and I talked about several times on our talk radio show. A few days after one of our shows, I saw a story in the Wall Street Journal about flash mobs, and left a link to a recording of our discussion of the topic.
Within 8 hours of that one link, we had over 200 unique visitors to listen to that segment. By far a record for the 50 or so segments we have on our web site.
The interest and the passion are there.
The information, is not. The dot connecting is not.
Thus a book.
As a former speech writer and column writer for the first Black Chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, and as someone who filled a similar position for the first Hispanic Republican elected in the City of San Diego, I’ve had a chance to see the reporting and reality of racial topics up close.
And I know people are craving the truth about this topic. But they feel they cannot get it from the mainstream media.
Not just race riots: It also extends to affirmative action, racial quotas, and double standards that people experience every day, but have long since learned not to talk about.
Black Chamber of Commerce, anyone? Black Journalists Association. Black colleges. Black high schools. Black churches. Black cemeteries. Black history. Black Culture. Black Music. Black Entertainment TV.
We talk about this every day. And every day people recognize the racial aspect to organizations like this. They may be used to it, but many do not like it.
So the marketing of this book is going to be fueled by this intense emotion. And intense relief that someone is telling the truth in a calm and assertive and brave fashion, about a topic they feel no one is talking about truthfully.
This Is How We Do It.
I subscribe to services where I get full access to lists of all the city editors, op-ed pages, editorial writers, talk show producers, guest bookers, book reviewers, and the like. More on that in a minute.
By the time this book is finished, we will also have a good data base cobbled together one at a time of the people who have been writing about these flash mobs. And maybe we will get some interest there.
But one thing every local producer/reporter wants is local context. And we will have tons of that.
Because that is probably how the book is going to be organized: By city. So we will have stories from at least 25 cities including every major metro area in the country.
We will also have information about violence against gays, women and asian minorities.
Here’s one way it might work:
I write a commentary for Chicago newspapers. We then send the commentary to Chicago TV and radio news producers.
Not a press release. Just a note saying I will be in town in one week and would be happy to stop by their studios for a no-holds barred discussion of this controversial topic. Encourage them to get their favorite, local race-baiter to challenge the book.
People such as that -- and more often they are white than black -- are themselves not used to be challenged -- with simple facts. They are so used to just showing up and calling people racists, they do not know what to do when someone challenges their knowledge of the facts.
Rather than be a large philosophical discussion of race relations, this book will be more about basic facts of the situation; why the media ignored it; how local leaders condoned it.
So, for example, if I send the talk radio producers in Chicago an email along with a commentary about Chicago saying I will be in their town for two days next month, talking about how their Mayor and Chief of Police put people in harm’s way by denying, ignoring and even not telling the truth about these violent episodes, what do you think they will say?
They will say, sounds good. Come on in.
Ditto with local columnists.
And the conservative bloggers will go nuts. They already are on the topic.
Ditto with local TV news shows, especially the morning shows. Many of these interviews will not be friendly.
I do not have a problem with that and will not have a problem talking about this very hot topic in a very cool but assertive way.
And of course, prior to showing up in Chicago, for example, I would write a 500 word commentary and send it to every paper within 100 miles of Chicago, talking about flash mob violence and the difference between what they heard -- and what was true.
There is no way to be modest about this: I write the 500-600 word newspaper commentary as well as anyone in the country. I’ve written for major political and businss figures, and that has appeared in virtually every newspaper in the country. Hundreds and hundreds of them.
That includes the New York Times. Boston Globe. Los Angeles Times. San Francisco Chronicle. Do I have to go on? I mean every one.
Well, maybe not the New York Post, come to think of it.
Anyway, this is a hot topic. And handled deftly, will attract lots of interest. We just have to stay out of the way and let it happen.
This could happen in every major metro area in the country.
The potential for national attention is real. But hard to judge.
This year alone, my clients have been on CSPAN, Fox Business, the New York Times, MSNBC, Bloomberg radio, Barron’s, Fortune, and tons of other national outlets.
We get there not because we are buddies with producers, but because we have good ideas that are stated in a compelling fashion.
And none of those topics are as sexy as race riots.
This topic lends itself to heat.
In New York it is against the law to predict the future. But let me ask you this: Can you imagine turning on Sean Hannity and seeing/hearing someone talk about this topic.
Oh yes.
Can you imagine turning on Chris Matthews and seeing the same thing?
Oh yes, even though Chris would be hostile to anyone who suggests what this book is going to suggest. Especially since his hometown, Philadelphia, is Ground Zero.
Let’s talk about the vast right wing conspiracy: They are going to love this topic. So now it is just a question of delivering a compelling, easy to understand story to places where they congregate. And let it happen.
We can do that.
We know the popular electronic spots, Rush, Hannity, etc. But the web sites are feeders for these shows: Lucianne. Daily Caller, Free Republic, The Blaze, and lots more, including the holy of holies: Drudge.
Lots of blogs. Lots of columnists. Lots of talk radio. All eager for stories like this. As long as we have our facts straight. And we will.
They do not want a screed. But they do respond to a clean presentation of the facts on controversial issues. So that is what we will give them.
And we will approach them in a systematic and personal way -- sometimes that means one email. Other times that means 1200 emails to every radio talk show host, producer and guest booker in the country.
My brother and I host a talk show in Wilmington Delaware. We did four segments on this. Here’s a link to one.
Hot topic.
Sidebar: I was reading a book proposal on-line the other day where the author claimed he was going to leverage all these media relationships he had into miles of coverage. He gave an example as American Business Journals with 40 something business journals that would be yearning to hear from him.
Put aside for a moment that I was a reporter and a columnist for that company. You don’t have to be one of their reporters to know that is not the way it works.
Good story ideas work.
Depending on your brother in law in the newsroom who owes you money does not. I have taught a class at the University of California for writers. I have trained reporters on how to research and interview.
I ghost write for them when they are sick. I party with them in Vegas.
I get them jobs.
I help produce their radio shows.
I say all this not to convince you that all my buddies in the press are eager to write uncritically about anything I am involved with.
Just the opposite: I usually do not let them know what/who I am representing because then they tend to marginalize it. The same way you would marginalize a magician once you learned where he kept his rabbit.
So my material appears in their columns, their radio shows, and the like, but not because I know them. Not because I tell them to. But because I tune my sensibilities to what they need to do a story. And I let them do it. (Obviously they would know about this book.)
But even so, reporters do love getting email from their audience about topics of the day. We can make that happen too.
By the way, I Googled the guy with all the great media contacts: Nothing. Nada. (Your own YouTube videos by themselves hardly count.)
I’ve dealt with a lot of people who have had a lot of friends in the media. 99 percent overstate their relationships.
When business people get together and talk about the press, some like to talk about how this reporter or that reporter owes them a favor and that is why he will be able to get such great coverage.
When reporters get together, they talk about people like that. They think they are idiots.
Here’s a Fair Question: This is a good story. But even if I have the skill to do it, does that make me the best one to write it?
No.
Obviously, if I had national platform like a Laura Ingraham or Nancy Grace, let along Glen Beck or Sean Hannity, that would make selling the book a lot easier.
But this book isn’t Dick Morris giving prescriptions to cure the body politic.
There are lots of those. And this book will fit comfortably in the book shelves next to them.
But no one is writing a book about civil unrest returning to America. See, even I am using euphemisms now.
No one has written a book about how black anger and violence is returning to America. But sooner or later someone will.
As I write this, my Google news alerts tell me that the Police Chief of Cleveland is putting his force on emergency footing because they heard people are planning more riots. The article mentioned three incidents there recently.
I only knew about two before.
Another one two hours later: Racial flash mob violence just erupted in Ireland, putting six people in the hospital.
So there is a lot here. And we can spread it around to the press.
Here is one way I have a lot of success: I surf the news.
Example: I wrote a commentary for one of my clients that appeared in Business Journals and other places all over the country. But that was not the goal of the piece. The goals was leverage.
So as soon as something about that piece popped up in the paper, I sent out an email (by as soon as, I mean 15 minutes. Not two days and three meetings later) -- the email went to financial reporters and editors throughout the country.
Basically coming from the client -- a real person -- saying, ‘hey, this thing in the news this morning, I wrote about it two weeks ago, here it is.’
Within two hours, we had calls from Barron’s, Lou Dobbs, Bloomberg, and others. We appeared on the ones I mentioned. Not too shabby.
I can tell you the details and show you the clips, as desired.
But we can do the same thing here: Anytime anyone starts talking about flash mob violence or any other kind of riot, we can inject ourselves into that coverage pretty quickly.
Because most news starts out in the newspapers, then migrates to radio and TV.
This is something I would do myself. And not rely on another PR firm to do. I can do it on the road. From any hotel room. Or Starbucks.
So I can handle the PR -- and the further reporting required -- on this as well anyone I ever met.
But still, there are lots of holes.
I don’t know anything about book tours, or speaking engagements, or projected sales, or your brother-in-law who works at Time magazine, or the hundreds of other things that I imagine have to happen to make a book a success.
If I did, I could probably publish it myself.
I think you will be surprised at the attention this book can get. And how we can leverage that attention into more attention. And then into sales.
I’m fully on board that writers need to be partners -- -- if not the driving force -- in selling what they write.
The pictures and logos come in the PR part of this proposal come from stories I placed in those media: 60 Minutes. Time. CSPAN. etc.
Approach.
There are lots of books about and by African Americans. Book stores devote entire sections to these books.
This book is not one of those.
This is not a sociological exploration on the roots of black rage. Though that can be ‘salted’ in, a little of that goes a long way.
Less about explaining, this is more about what is happening, and how people are in denial about what it is.
I have a complete -- and growing by the day -- list of news stories and YouTube videos that document the growing violence.
But I would like to go beyond that and talk to three other groups:
- Victims
- Perpetrators
* Deniers.
They are out there waiting to talk. But no one is asking the right questions.
Sample Chapter.
1.
White Girls Bleed A Lot.
Emily Guendelsberger had nothing to fear from black mob violence in Philadelphia. Despite the news reports, she dismissed it.
Besides, she and her buddies were the good guys.
Not for them the white fear of racial violence.
They were charter members of the Sarah Palin bashing, affirmative action loving, ‘can’t we all just get along’ crowd.
Just a year before, Guendelsberger had written a column for the Philadelphia Daily News, decrying anyone who would attach any larger meaning to the rash of racial violence in the Philadelphia area. Because although all the perpetrators were of the same race in all the events, their actions were not racial.
She even stuck to her story after a mob of African Americans assaulted her in June of 2011.
Not one of the thousands of black people on the streets of downtown Philadelphia that night cared about her good intentions. The evening Guendelsberger and her friends were almost beaten to death.
The newspapers report the mob consisted of 50 to 100 people on indeterminate race. But the fact is, they were a splinter group of a crowd of thousands of black people nearby.
And not one cared enough to call the police.
Or point out the assailants.
Guendelsberger spent the next several days in a hospital bed with a severely broken leg; explaining to people how unhappy she was that her hospital roommate watched religious programming on TV.
And clearly the violence visited upon her was not racial because, although all the assailants were black, her boyfriend was ‘brown.’
And since he got beat up too, but not as badly as she did, that proved her point that race had nothing to do with it.
Anyone who thought differently was “creepy,” she said.
Philadelphia liberals, meet the Stockholm syndrome.
The Mayor of Philadelphia, Michael Nutter, called on her cell phone to thank her. She was thrilled.
This was the same Mayor who had recently declared that an outbreak of racial violence was nothing to worry about. The Police chief backed him up. The District Attorney said a ‘high school diploma is the best anti-crime tool.’
Then came the YouTube videos, showing thousands of black people roaming the streets of Philadelphia, with violence and injury following.
Then came the testimonials from other victims. Police had claimed that none of the injuries imposed by the mob was serious. Turns out they had not even checked.
John, a maintenance mechanic, suffered severe brain injury and facial fractures and is sitting in a hospital as I write this, two weeks after he was pulled from a bike and beaten.
A few days after the attack, news anchors on the local Fox affiliate weighed in. A black TV anchor worried about the “destructive tone” of the comments from people who observed that all the people in these riots were black.
She said it was sad that people did not recognize the true nature of the violence: Young people were to blame. Not black people.
Their guest, a black radio talk show host, said the riots were not racial. But if they were it, was understandable because the state legislature cut money for job training and increased money for prisons. He said it was not right to blame everyone in a group for the acts of a few bad people in that group.
“When African American commits a crime, society is looking to define race. When Lochner shot (Congresswoman) Giffords, nobody said ‘what is wrong with white men?’ This isn’t a black or white issue: they need things to do.”
Then they blamed young people some more. It was not about race. Couldn’t we see that?
In Milwaukee, a few nights later, a black mob of 50 to 100 set upon a group of white teenagers gathered to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. After beating, bottle throwing and racial taunting, one assailant observed that ‘White girls bleed a lot.”
That night, police refused to take reports from 20 victims and eager witnesses. The next day, the police chief of Milwaukee said “crime was color blind.”
Sample Chapter 2.
Even Liberals Get the Blues
Race riots are back. And nobody wants to talk about it -- in public.
Except to deny it.
In hundreds of episodes around the country, large and angry crowds of young black men are leaving the ghetto and spilling into middle class neighborhoods with mayhem and violence on their minds.
Chicago. Miami. Philadelphia. Las Vegas. New York. Nashville. Milwaukee. Atlantic City. Mobile. Rochester. Charlotte. Peoria. Iowa.
Iowa?
Yes, Iowa.
At the Iowa State Fair, 50 young black men roamed the fairgrounds, threatening and assaulting white people in what police reports described as “Beat Whitey Night.”
Public officials and media in Iowa took a characteristic two-sided position: On one hand they said the crimes were not racial. On the other, they said if the crimes were racial, there was a good reason.
Said one local newspaper columnist:
“ Yes, this is a terrible way to rebel. The question becomes this: who is to blame?
No matter where your beliefs fall, the fault is with both sides. And not only is it both sides, it falls on society as a whole.
That means you.
In Chicago, the new Superintendent of Police blamed the NRA and Sarah Palin. He said they were guilty of hate crimes for encouraging the spread of weapons in “urban” neighborhoods.
Later, he said he did fear for the safety of some Chicago citizens: The ones doing the rioting.
Ditto in Cleveland.
No, I am not making this up.
And it is not just the streets. In Philadelphia, it also extends into the schools. For years, Asian parents complained their children were being brutalized on hundreds of occasions.
School officials dismissed their complaints.
Finally the Department of Justice stepped in and discovered the complaints had merit: Black students were systematically assaulting and abusing Asians. Students and parents.
This was after seven Asian students were hospitalized in the attacks. After one mother was hospitalized with suffered serious facial injuries after being attacked in front of her son at the high school in a separate, but related episode.
Finally, Asian students went on strike. School officials admitted they might have had a problem. So they gave the students pamphlets, instructing them how to avoid racist behavior.
They of course gave the pamphlets to the Asian students.
“the leaders distributed a list of racial slurs and told the students: It's wrong. And you need to know that slurs can escalate quickly and violently.immigrants can be too limited in English to recognize racist language - and the danger it may portend.”
No news on whether any of the perpetrators were arrested, expelled, or even given goofy pamphlets instructing them how to stop beating up Asian minority students.
Is Blaming the Victim and worrying about the perpetrators a form of denial? Discuss amongst yourselves.
Luckily however, there is YouTube and other independent sources that can show us and tell us what happened in many of these cases. Unvarnished. Not what we dreamed happened, but what really happened.
It is hardly a secret that most people are afraid to talk about race. At least in public.
And most of us know why: To talk about race in America is to risk intellectual and professional banishment because of shifting double standards that can trap even the most careful. Even the most thoughtful.
So we deny.
For others, to talk about systematic black mob violence is to speak to the failure of 50 years of social engineering.
So we deny.
Jesse Jackson says he crosses the street if he see a group of young black men.
If Brian Williams says that, he is off the air permanently.
And now we see the result: Full scale race riots in dozens of American cities where the racial component is ignored, denied or scorned.
Attorney General Holder says we are cowards when it comes to talking about race. He never explained what he meant by that, but most would say he was talking about the cowardice of people afraid to admit that white racism is responsible for black pathology.
Others point to his refusal to prosecute Black Panthers accused of threatening people outside of a Philadelphia voting booth and see this statement as a laughable attempt to discourage any examination of growing black anger and violence in America.
Thus ending whatever chance we have for talking about what fuels this black anger. If anything.
And what we can do about it. If anything.
If you are looking for polite and thoughtful academic treatise on race in America, this is not it.
This is a book about what is happening, really happening, on the streets of America right now.
And we do not need to sugar coat it with all the usual code words such as urban, inner city, impoverished, hip hop.
These riots have an undeniable racial feature that demands we confront it on its own terms.
So let’s head on out to the South Beach of Miami, South Street Philadelphia, the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, and dozens of other places to find victims, talk to perpetrators, and put some sunshine on those who deny the existence of a huge problem that many people will do anything to avoid talking about.
Chapter Outline.
I propose to organize the book by cities -- with every city demonstrating a different aspect of this crisis. Perhaps with a separate chapter for attacks against gays, other racial minorities and women.
Chapter One: White Girl Bleeds a Lot.
We begin with the story of Emily Guendelsberger, a liberal reporter for The Onion. Her wishful thinking about black mob violence landed her in the hospital with a severely broken leg.
She could have been killed.
We also meet Shaina Perry of Milwaukee. Sitting with some friend enjoying the Fourth of July, they were attacked by a crowd of 50 to 100 young black men.
As she lay bleeding, Perry heard her attacker remark: “Oh, white girl bleeds a lot.”
Later that night, with 20 witnesses eager to give statements to the police, the police refused to take a report.
When asked about it, the Milwaukee chief of police said ‘crime is colorblind.”
Chapter 2. The Big Picture:
Race riots are back. And nobody wants to talk about it -- in public.
Except to deny it.
Large and angry crowds of young black men are leaving the ghetto and spilling into middle and upper class neighborhoods with mayhem and violence on their minds in hundreds of episodes in over 25 cities in the last year.
Chicago. Miami. Philadelphia. Las Vegas. New York. Nashville. Milwaukee. Atlantic City. Mobile. Rochester. Charlotte. Peoria. Iowa.
Iowa?
Yes, Iowa.
Chapter 3 -- Ground Zero: Chicago.
With dozens of cases of black mob violence, city officials and local media had no idea what to do -- or say.
So they made it up as they went along.
First there was no problem, just isolated incidents.
The local press refused to report the racial components of the crime because they said it was not relevant.
The attacks increased.
The city closed a beach because the mayor said it was too hot. When, in fact, 911 calls released later, showed the beach had become a center of racial violence.
Finally, at the end of June, the new police chief, speaking at a Catholic Church, admitted the violence really was a hate crime: But not black on white -- White on black. That is because the NRA and Sarah Palin (!!) were really responsible for all the guns in the black neighborhoods.
He did not say black neighborhoods. He said urban centers.
On top of the fear of talking about race, Chicago official are terrified that word will get out that tourists are not safe in richest parts of the city.
An eyewitness account from Chicago:
“I was riding my bike around Oak Street beach Friday night, 6/3/2011, 9:30pm. Something that I have been doing for years. I like the Gold Coast and enjoy riding at night around the many parks and beaches. Never ever had any problems on Chicago’s lake front 1992-2011 (Can’t ride during the day; too sunny and too hot.)
Well, I think it will be my last ride around Oak Street beach because of all the young drunk black youth out in force, so many of them, tons, along with a police escort. I even had a young black teen say to me "I bet you never saw so many black’s up this way." Another had his pants down so low that I looked at him very quickly, as he was right in front of me. And he said, "What you looking at?" in a very mean way.
“This goes out to all that live in Greater Chicagoland: do not go up there, you will only see trouble. I love this town, but angry black teens? On the Gold Coast? Not good news for anyone or Chicago.”
Congressman Bobby Rush, a former Black Panther and the only man ever to defeat Barack Obama in an election, said this kind of mob violence has been happening in Chicago for a long time.
Just not in the white neighborhoods. Thus the sudden attention.
“This is a not new. Flash mobs, pepper spray assaults by young men have dominated this weekend’s news. I’m disturbed because it happens on the South Side on a regular basis. It seems as though when it happens on the North Side, then it’s newsworthy.”
The mother of one of the few people arrested for these crimes told the Chicago papers that her son was not being treated fairly.
Sykes’ mother Tonia Rush said she believed the bails would have been lower if the crimes were on the South or West sides. “If it’s black-on-black crime, nobody cares,” she said.
“Point has merit,” said a Chicago Times Columnist
There’s a lot of that in every city.
Chapter 4. Black Beach Week in Miami.
For nine years, Miami has been the site of Urban Beach Week. Or as their officials web site calls it: Black Beach week.
It takes place largely at South Beach in Miami. 300,000 black people crammed into one small town. Where for five days residents are terrorized, property destroyed, police are shot, and the situation is so out of control that people are demanding the event be cancelled.
Even risking the worst possible thing -- that someone will call them racist -- if they do.
After a particularly violent Urban Week in 2011, a newspaper commentator says
“I am disturbed by subtle overtones of racial prejudice in the comments I have read and heard with respect to Urban Beach Weekend. We all need to ask ourselves if the behavior we resent would be at the same level of intensity if the participants were mainly white or Hispanic.”
A gay leader spoke out:
“The shooting comes as a blow to city officials already under long-standing pressure to end the annual festival. One such critic, Herb Sosa, president of Miami-area Hispanic gay rights group Unity Coalition, published an caps-laden open letter calling on Miami Beach’s mayor to “make the difficult but correct decision to put an end to Urban Weekend in Miami Beach and help us SAVE OUR CITY,” calling the city a “warzone” and referring to the festivalgoers as an “unruly & dangerous mob,” and asking “When did perceived political or social correctness override the safety & well-being of a community? This is not a race, economic or ethnic issue, it is an issue of visitors who have a total lack of respect for our community, its property & citizens.”
Another Miami business leader spoke out as frankly as he could:
David Kelsey, president of the South Beach Hotel & Restaurant Association, also says it’s not about race: “There’s still a gulf between the crowd we’re attracting and the crowd we really want to attract and need for future business.”
Kelsey’s statement attracted the ire of the Awl’s Choire Sicha, who presents some stats about how business is booming at every Miami Beach luxury hotel and luxury car rental agency, and concludes of Kelsey’s present-yet-undesirable luxury crowds: “So you know, “they” are all luxurious enough to rent the town’s entire stock of $2000-a-day rental cars but not luxurious enough to be… white. (Also, I’m sorry, have none of these white people ever set foot inside a Louis Vuitton store? Who do you think made that into a bajillion-dollar business?)”
Meanwhile, the ACLU reports widespread complaints from festivalgoers of police racial profiling.
My brother and I do a radio talk show where this has been a topic several times. When the Canadians rioted after the Stanley Cup, he was the happiest guy in town: Finally, a white riot.
Miami is one of the places where we add another level to black mob violence: Violence against gays. And they are speaking out about it more and more.
Chapter 5.
Violence against Gays.
In Chicago, black mobs are invading Boystown -- the gay neighborhood. Someone gets stabbed. Gays very unhappy. But many are afraid to talk about what is going on.
Some are not.
But they are conflicted because they want ‘diversity.’
But few ask. I will change that.
Chapter 6. Iowa: Beat Whitey Night.
The Iowa State Fair: Beat Whitey Night. Unruly crowd. Violence against police. Violence against spectators. All under the rubric of the Beat Whitey Night.
The police who made the initial report may have been disciplined for including that in reports.
Chapter 7. Philadelphia.
Where do all the hippies meet? South Street.
And that is where a violent flash flash mob found the liberal newspaper editor and her buddies
And if not for YouTube, the city just might have gotten away with dismissing several episodes of racial violence in this funky eating and drinking district.
City of Brotherly Love turns into ‘Denial on the Delaware’ as the Mayor and District attorney deny problems, and local press dances around it until a reader revolt forces them to confront it.
The reader revolts happen on-line in the comments section.
In one story, readers were upset that the paper would not tell the real story of the race riots. So the paper stopped allowing comments and took them down.
Upper Darby, near Philadelphia, also had a flash riot. Two days later, a police captain said he was worried about violence against the flash mobs.
We have people now that are fearful and carrying guns because of children. How sad is that?" Upper Darby police Captain George Rhoades said."Now we have this mentality, 'I'm not going to retreat. I'm not going to call 9-1-1. I'm going to be a vigilante and take care of the problem myself,'" he said. That means flash mob children could be dead, and the would-be victims may have the right, but Rhoades is appealing to everybody to think twice.”
Chapter 8. New York.
So whose idea was it to let every high school kid in Queens and Brooklyn out of school on the same day so they could all go to the beach and have a riot? People got shot and killed.
Said a local policemen to the Post:
“It’s a bad combination of guns, heat, beer and angry young men," a police source said, pointing to empty malt liquor bottles strewn all over The Boardwalk.”
Lots of YouTube videos.
Chapter 9. Will It Play in Peoria?
Absolutely: On July 4, in the heart of middle America, large crowds of black people set off industrial strength fireworks -- and aimed them at police.
Thank you YouTube.
Chapter 10. Rochester Rib Festival.
Big race riot breaks out. City councilman says not to worry.
Other Chapters:
I think you get the picture: There are still another dozen cities -- at least -- where this is happening.
I would like to find out more about it.
Then present it in a compelling and dramatic fashion.
Summary.
Someone is going to write a book about this soon.
So let’s get going.
Colin Flaherty
619-379-6156
colinflaherty.com
What People Are Saying about Colin Flaherty
“As the former president of the California Building Industry Association, I’ve worked with Flaherty Communications on some of the most difficult public affairs problems in the country 20 years.They made a deciding difference in a dozen major campaigns.
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Chairman
Barratt Group
p.s. We recently retained Flaherty Communications for web services as well. Within one week he tripled traffic to our site, raised our search engine rankings, which drove two new clients to our models who bought homes.
__________________________
“Colin Flaherty is a brilliant strategist who understands and more-importantly deals in real-world tactics. He sees right through the clutter in order to develop crisp, on-point messaging that gets the point across, tells the story, and makes an impact.
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In January 2011, after President Obama's State of the Union address, I was quoted in the New York Times in its story on the energy piece of the President's speech. Guess how that happened.”
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SPG Solar
Insituform
__________________________
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NFL Hall of Fame
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__________________________
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San Diego, California
Tennessee
__________________________
"I’ve worked with Flaherty Communications on two projects. One was my restaurant, that he shut down one day because after he convinced a local TV station to do a review we did so much business we ran out of food! My restaurant was also named Best Barbecue in San Diego by 6 different TV stations and newspapers. Our food was good, I know that. But I’m still not sure how he pulled that off. And we were on so many radio stations so often that I lost track.
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All American Football League
Big Jim’s Barbeque
San Diego, California
__________________________
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(former) Editor
San Diego Business Journal
__________________________
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President
Starboard Advertising
Atlanta, Georgia
__________________________
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San Diego Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year
Mortgage Banker
Restaurant Owner
__________________________
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__________________________
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Communications Manager
Health Care,
Hockessin, Delaware
__________________________
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Barratt American
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__________________________
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Just yesterday, without naming the specific client, something he posted on a blog two weeks ago ended up in the New York Times.
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Writer/Producer
San Diego, California
__________________________
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North Bridge Communications
Washington, D.C.
