City Desk

Gregory Kane’s Modest Proposal on Flash Mobs

We’re all wondering how to react to the scariest iterations of "flash mobs." On Sunday, a flash mob—an organized group that emerges and then disappears quickly, usually with the help of social media—reportedly descended on a 7-Eleven in Germantown, Md., where members allegedly stole snacks. It's a criminal activity we all want to see the end of.

One way to stop the phenomenon, at least when the flash mobs involve black youths attacking whites, is simple: Shoot at them. Or at least, that's the solution conservative black Examiner columnist Gregory Kane came up with yesterday.

Kane called out the "villainous mob of black youths" who allegedly attacked whites at a Wisconsin State Fair on Aug. 4 for being racists, as well as concocting a theory about how the mob assumed that because black athletes "dominate" the NBA and NFL, white people are "soft targets."

Getting even wackier, Kane pulls the Rev. Jesse Jackson into it, claiming Jackson's okay with the mobs because, in the past, Jackson has offered a power analysis that says racism acts institutionally, and so can only be inflicted by whites, because they're in control.

"With such a failure of leadership, is it any wonder you have crowds of young blacks attacking whites in Chicago, Wisconsin and Baltimore?" Kane wrote. "Jackson, with his words, condoned the racist practice of black mobs attacking whites."

Kane, who waves the Second Amendment whenever possible, is ready for marauding black youngsters to encounter white people capable of hurting them back:

... I guarantee you that these mobs will run into a Jack Dempsey or Rocky Marciano type one day. I hope they run into several at one time. Here's what else I hope: that the black flash mobs will run into a white or group of whites who take seriously the Second Amendment and their right to carry.

I don't often take Kane too seriously; he's a paid polemicist who pushes the same kind of sensationalistic rhetoric Ann Coulter does, except under the protection of a black identity. Black thinkers like him mine the id of white right-wingers to emerge with a scandalous argument they defend by claiming to push against racial group-think.

That's fine—I'm all for widening the public conversation, even when it makes a nerdy black leftist like myself uncomfortable. But hoping an already violent situation will escalate to gunfire, and likely, mass casualties, crosses a line.

The doomsday clamor about flash mobs a Google search currently turns up isn't unlike the clamor about "wilding" in 1989, when the city of New York was convinced that a group of 30-40 youths from Harlem had raped and beaten a morning jogger while participating in some chaos dubbed "wilding." The idea that violent teenagers were taking to sunny parks en masse likely helped usher in the controversial tenure and racially-tainted policing policies of Mayor Rudy Giuliani years later. That means flash mobs are dangerous in more ways than one.

People certainly have a right to self-defense, but hoping wrong-headed black youths encounter a hail of bullets instead of arrest is blood lust, maybe even hate, that could operate as the pretext for darker times.

Which brings up a point: If Kane is eager to expand the definition of “racist” so that it can be applied to black flash mobs, might it also apply to race-baiting black columnists?

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  • Upset The Setup

    But when its a snowball fight its not a flashmob right?

  • Skipper

    The wildings term in NYC applied to more than just the Central Park jogger attack - it also applied to several attacks by black and Hispanic youth in city parks and pools.

  • Sigmagrrl

    But what if you're someone who DOES want to challenge racial group think? That person gets called an Uncle Tom, an oreo, and a sell-out.

  • scallywag

    Is it performance art, a heist, a political statement, copy cat tactics courtesy of last week’s looting in the UK or just the new trending prank du jour? Where to next week Walmart?

  • Southeast Ken

    Why are some of you turning this into race? Hell, these are savages. A savage can be of any race. Yes, those that threw snowballs at vehicles during a snowball fight are considered savages in my book. I don't discriminate when it come to using the word savage.

    I saw a bunch of black flash mob savages on MyFox Philly. As a black man, I was embarrassed to see young black men and woman acting in this manner. We did some dumb shit too back in the day (70's), but nothing like this shit. If I were to act like this back in the day, my parents would whip my ass. However, my parents knew where I was at all times during my teen years.

  • blkwrestl

    Kane needs to be eliminated. He is a back porch negro who thinks he is accepted by white people .The Nation will tke care of him.

  • Southeast Ken

    @blkwrestl; are you condoning this type of bad behavior by blacks? If so, the black race is finished. Any black person that condone this type of behavior and blame this behavior on the white man, is full of shit. It's time for blacks to take control of their lives and stop all the violence. I grew up poor and I didn't act like a dam savage.

  • NotRacist

    I'm sorry, but I think anyone participating in mob violence regardless of race deserve a hail of bullets, thrusts from knives, as well as arrest. Remember, a beat down can lead to death and debilitation. There is no excuse for violence, period. Also remember that blacks, whites, Asians, etc., can be equally racist.

    I'm expecting some of these urban youth to get shot in CPL-friendly states eventually thru these retarded flash riots. If not this summer, then the next. I'm sure things will simmer down a bit as the weather cools down.

  • CarbonDate

    While "clamor" about wildings may have contributed to Rudy Giuliani's election, the Crown Heights riots were also a major factor.

    But the threat of a Giuliani-type being elected isn't the larger threat to the black community. That's really the best-case scenario. The worst case scenario is the return of white racial mob violence -- the type which, quite frankly, these youngsters have never seen. That these kids see white people as "easy targets" (their words, not mine or Kane's) tells me that they don't understand what they could be awakening.

    There are lots of white racists with lots of guns waiting for an excuse to return to the old ways, and these flash mobs attacking whites are giving it to them. If this type of mob violence continues, it's going to get very, very ugly.