Holidays are a special time for practitioners and deniers of black mob violence. The Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Labor Day and of course New Year’s are among the most popular.
But not Christmas. Not usually. Not until the 2014 holiday season: Black mob violence and resentment erupted across the country during the few days before, during and after Christmas. And not the “carry signs and send out a press release” kind of political violence.
That year’s Yuletide racial violence was more spontaneous. More deadly. More old school. Not connected to the recent political protests over Mike Brown, Eric Garner and fill in your favorite atrocity that racist police inflicted on black people For No Reason What So Ever.
Let’s start in a small town near Houston called Texas City, where hundreds of black people decided to celebrate Christmas Night at a party promoting “Hood Night.’78
Near midnight, one of the patrons found himself in the parking lot, shooting a handgun. When police arrived, he was shooting toward the crowd and ignored orders to drop the weapon.
That is when Hood Night got real: The man with the gun turned towards police and they shot him dead. At least that is what the nightclub owner told local news stations after he reviewed the footage from his security cameras.
And what is Hood Night without a riot? “Police had to dispatch reinforcements after some people in the crowd starting throwing rocks at officers and police vehicles,” reported the local Fox affiliate.
The dead man’s mother and sisters said he was a good person and not prone to violence and people should not believe the police or witnesses or videotapes or anything else because the 20-year old man had recently graduated from high school and was getting his life together.
Next stop, Pawtucket, Rhode Island, Christmas night: Police responded to a large group of black people fighting and destroying property at a nightclub. When police suggested to Aderito Andrade that he refrain from the violent behavior that he appeared to be exhibiting, he declined.79
Andrade punched one cop in the face, knocking him out. Then he assaulted another. By this time, the crowd of 50 to 100 black people was fully aware of the injustice of trying to arrest a man who had just attacked a police officer, so they responded in kind by attacking a female cop:
“Police said during the officers’ struggle to arrest Andrade, a large group of people surrounded the officers and began yelling obscenities,” reported Channel 12 news. “A third officer was kicked several times by men in the group. Police then sprayed the crowd with pepper spray, causing them to disperse.”
In San Antonio, police responded to a noise complaint at a party. When they found the host, “things got out of hand,” said the Fox affiliate. "Instead of helping the officers, he stepped aside and into the middle of the crowd and began yelling things about the police,” Sgt. Joe Mckinney said.
That is when partygoers started punching the police and throwing rocks and bottles at them. Several black people were handcuffed. One of the people who threw the party was charged with inciting a riot.
But this all happened a few days before Christmas, so maybe it does not count as part of this Holiday roundup.
And by the way, that is three large-scale attacks on cops, if you are the type who keeps track of that kind of thing. As I am.
So here’s your challenge: If you were writing this chapter, you would probably try to put the most interesting part first. Hood Night, shootings, attacks on police, and denials were pretty interesting to me.
But it could just as easily have been the black mob violence at more than a dozen malls and shopping centers during the same period.80 So let’s get started on that:
Off to Chicago, the day after Christmas: The Navy Pier hosted a holiday gathering called Winter WonderFest. During the party, 100 to 200 black people fought, raged, rampaged, destroyed property and fired guns. 81
In almost every episode in this report, people said guns were fired, but police said they were not. Unless someone got shot.
Back at Chicago’s most popular tourist destination, Navy Pier, one pregnant woman was injured and taken to the hospital. Five black people were arrested. For a fuller picture of the holiday chaos, let’s turn to Chicago’s most reliable source for crime news: The Second City Cop Blog, a must read for law enforcement in the area. Or for anyone who wants a realistic account of black mob violence there. A few comments:
“It wasn't a disturbance, it was a battery in progress. It wasn't 50, it was more like 1000. There was also a report of a man with a gun and shots fired, although never verified. Not to mention a call for teens smoking weed in the Imax theater.”
Said another:
“Every race is getting sick and tired of the black teens running around acting like thug fools. No black mommas coming out to condemn their actions. The media continues to conceal the race of the thugs...although they mention the race of every white officer and every unarmed and armed black victim.”
And one more: “Gotta love it. A large group of blacks male and female got to an area where it's mainly white and they cause all this damage. Does the news report how this group hurt white citizens???”
Like Jacob Marley explaining to Scrooge, this holiday tour is just getting started. Let’s be on our way to the Monroeville Mall near Pittsburgh, the day after Christmas. Prior to this Yuletide riot, this mall was chiefly known as the setting for the 1978 zombie movie classic, Dawn of the Dead.
The day after Christmas, as many as 1000 black people descended on the mall and chaos, violence, property destruction, defiance, and other mayhem ensued, much of it on video.
So much so even the local news anchors had trouble believing what they were seeing. Two people were hurt and no one was arrested.
Despite the video evidence, police and mall officials tried to downplay the widespread violence. Commenters at local web sites insisted on some truth instead:
Said Kayla Valerina to WTAE: “I was a witness of a teenage boy getting jumped in JC Penny's while I was shopping. He was kicked until he had bruises all over and probably a concussion. They took things such as his phone and things he had bought. I called 911 later bringing cops to the mall before everything went crazy.”
Said another: “Pictures and VIDEOS are worth a 1000 words.... So if you think I am racist for this comment.....then you are a special kind of Stupid.”
Off to the Wolfchase Mall in Memphis: Basically the same as the Monroeville Mall, except the crowd of 250 black people was smaller. Though many in the area say racial violence has become an every day fact of life in Memphis, and this is just the latest example.
Said Frank G Bilbro to a local paper: “Wolfchase will soon go the way of the Mall of Memphis, Raleigh Springs and Hickory Hill malls. Ghetto will take over and no decent person will want to go there. It will happen slowly at first with one store closing, then another and another and no retailers to take their place. Wolfchase will become an empty hulking monument to lack of decency and lawlessness.”
In Sacramento at the Arden Fair mall, a large group of black people were fighting and destroying property first in the food court, then outside. First upstairs, then downstairs, lasting several hours.
Police closed the mall 90 minutes early at 7:30 p.m. the day after Christmas and hauled two dozen people away in handcuffs, said KCRA News. One police spokesperson did tell Fox 40 that this kind of violence is normal because of “heightened emotions.”
In Orlando the day after Christmas, a group of black people was fighting inside a Publix grocery store. One person was shot, several fled. A man only identified as Eric said he saw the suspects flee. He told the Orlando Sentinel: He “was not surprised by the gunfire: "I've lived here for a long time. I've seen a lot.”
No one was arrested.
At Independence, Missouri, near Kansas City on the day after Christmas, Independence Center locked down some stores early Friday night after large groups of youths congregated at the shopping mall and some fights broke out,” said the Kansas City Star.
Hundreds of black people were fighting in and out the mall. More from The Star: “Ashley Jones of Independence had just finished eating with friends at Applebee’s when they walked out about 8:20 p.m. and saw multiple police cars. One officer opened his trunk to retrieve a large gun,” Jones said. “We said, ‘Is it that bad?’ And he said, ‘Better safe than sorry,’” Jones said.
Then they saw a second officer getting a gun from his trunk. That officer told them a riot had broken out. “We heard screaming and yelling, and we took off running,” Jones said. “It was very scary.”
At least one congressman can say, “I told you so.” That would be former mayor of Kansas City, Emanuel Cleaver. When last year, the Kansas City Council discussed imposing a curfew to curtail the regular and frequent black mob violence at the upscale Country Club Plaza, Cleaver advised against it: “All we are going to do is make a lot of black kids angry,” he said. “And they will just take out their anger someplace else.”
That dude is a psychic. The Star disabled comments for the story.
Let’s not forget Davenport, Buffalo, Chicago (again), York, Nashville, Groton, Dayton, and … how many do you want?82
To top off the holiday racial violence, twitchy.com assembled a curious collection of Tweets from black female rapper Azealia Banks. Banks might not be the biggest rapper in the world, but with 580,000 followers on Twitter, she is far from the smallest. Her latest cause is forcing white people to pay black people reparations for slavery and racism and for general purposes.
Throughout the holidays she was urging her followers to track down the descendants of slave owners and do all sorts of bad things to them.
Which sounded like a pretty good idea to James DeWolf Perry, well known among the PBS set: “Executive Director of the Tracing Center, James DeWolf Perry has devoted a major portion of his life to educating Americans about the horrors of slavery. He was “nominated for an Emmy Award for his role as the principal historical consultant for our PBS documentary, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North.””
He wanted to get on the Azealia Banks love train and told her so in a tweet: “I'm a white person who agrees with everything you're saying about history, and about racial reality today.”
Azealia was not feeling the love: “@JDeWPerry someone should kick your ass, and punch you right in your stupid smiling cracker face.”