Let’s start with that, my favorite quote:
Emanuel Cleaver used to be the mayor of Kansas City. Today he is a member of Congress. He does not question who is responsible for the long-term and intense racial violence at the County Club Plaza in Kansas City.
He just wonders if the people who support a curfew to stop it have really thought it through: 229
“All we are going to do is make a lot of black kids angry and they are going to take out their anger somewhere else.”
OK, let’s get this curfew story started:
Kansas City councilman Jermaine Reed wanted to have an “honest” discussion on race. But like Attorney General Eric Holder and former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien who made similar pleas before him, he did not really say more than that.
Reed’s call for honest talk came after three years and dozens of episodes of black mob violence at the Plaza in Kansas City. 230 He wanted an explanation as to why police only cited black people for violating the curfew.231
I could not tell if he was unhappy with the black people for frequent and large-scale episodes of mob violence. Or unhappy with the police for catching them. Smart money is on the latter.
Some residents of Kansas City say black mob violence is out of control, and has been for a while. Not Reed. This councilman says black people are the victims of police prejudice, not the perpetrators of mob violence.232 "The data is the data. That's what I'm looking at," Reed said. "We've got to be honest and have an honest conversation. Say, 'Here's what it says and have an honest conversation, as well."
Reed declined to have a conversation of any kind for this book.
Local talk show host Greg Knapp of KCMO radio did. He said Councilman Reed “tried to imply the police were racially enforcing the curfew.” 233
Another councilman said black people do not feel welcome at the Plaza, and that is the reason for the violence. It is amazing how often I hear the “we don’t feel welcome” line. Including Virginia Beach. St. Louis. And loads of others.
It is a great script flipper.
Reed’s racially charged comments attracted the full -- and surprised -- attention of at least one TV news station.234
“The fact that a lot of the teens that congregate here on the Plaza just to hang out are black teenagers has largely been an implied or unmentioned fact,” said Michael Mahoney, a local TV reporter with Channel 9 news. “The big deal on this is the issue of black teenagers down here on the plaza and a year round curfew is something that has been hinted at. Implied. Whispered about.”
Except for White Girl Bleed a Lot of course. We shouted it. Right there in KC.235
No one is really sure when large groups of black people started showing up at Country Club Plaza. But by 2010, the crowds were so big and so violent they were getting increasingly difficult for newspapers and public officials to ignore.
The Business Journal was among the first to bell the cat, maybe because one of its reporters saw the violence first-hand. Steve Vockrodt described one night as an “ugly scene” of 1000 “youngsters” that was “nothing less than a riot.”236
There were assaults, robberies, vandalism, and broken jaws. Nearby businesses closed early, and there was a lot of general mayhem. Shoppers were afraid. When police tried to step in, the juveniles greeted them with profanities and disrespect “every time there was an interaction.”
Vockrodt said he was surrounded by fifteen people who tried to steal his bike.
Back in 2010, then-mayor Mark Funkhouser said the mobs were nothing new, and it happened every spring. Funkhouser announced he was darn well going to stop it.
But by August 2011, Kansas City had a new mayor with the same old problems of black mobs at the Plaza. Two years later they are still waiting. And no one is pretending the problem is isolated any more.
By 2013, local television stations showed groups of black people at the Plaza fighting, running from police, and creating mayhem. “The scenes of teens running and ending up in handcuffs are all too familiar now at the crown jewel of Kanas City, the Plaza,” said the Fox affiliate in Kansas City. “Just last week another similar incident took place.”
Many of the attacks happened in February, prior to the summertime curfew, said the Fox News affiliate in Kansas City.237
A homeless man told police he was beat by a group of fifteen kids thought to be younger than sixteen years old. The men and women on the streets say it is a common occurrence.
“It’s just unfortunate. I mean I’ve heard stories about people sleeping under the bridges and people come by and hit ’em with bricks and stuff like that,” said Mike Higgins, a Kansas City homeless man. Another man who calls the streets home, Arthur Scott, told us he was attacked last year after three young teens asked to use his phone.”
Guess he did not make them feel welcome.
By 2013, two years after Mayor Sly James said he would take care of the problem by the next weekend, it became clear the problem never really went away. “Fights everywhere,” is how one black woman described one episode of black mob violence at the Plaza. She was also upset that police chased her and 999 of her closest friends out of the area after they told them to leave the plaza, and they refused.
More police and tighter curfews have not curbed the violence, said the TV stations.
Now police are sending out “community liaisons” to meet with the black people on the plaza and find out what they need. “The answer is complicated,” said the reporter.
One of the black people said Kansas City should open up a place where teens can party. Others said the curfew and more police were not effective because “teens say they hate being targeted and teens never like being told what to do,” the news gang reported.238
In September 2013, it happened again: Mounted police and members of the SWAT team used pepper spray to subdue and disperse the crowd.
Tweeting from the scene, local NBC reporter Garrett Haake said, “Police and teens tell me after a movie got out, a large group came here to avoid the curfew and a fight broke out. Police arrived and sprayed.”
At one public meeting the mayor said it was time for a dialogue, but most of the newspapers and electronic media don’t permit comments on the topic of racial violence. However, KMBC does. Donovan Tozier commented on that web site:239
“Well I work by the plaza and I can tell you I have never seen a group of white kids running around causing problems, I have not seen a group of Hispanic kids running around causing problems.
That goes for Chinese, Korean, or every other race out there. You want to make it a race thing so I am going to call it like I see it.
This issue revolves completely around our young black youth. Getting in large groups and running the sidewalks jumping around acting immature is not what the plaza needs or wants as real shoppers are trying to enjoy a night out.
I don’t blame anyone for avoiding the Plaza when this happens, it is not a safe environment when hundreds of out of control children are running around.”
Another Plaza visitor commented:
I had to cross the Plaza last summer going home from babysitting, and while sitting at a stoplight I was shouted at, called names, and had my car beaten on by these hooligans.
They were ALL black. These are the type of situations that worsen the already tense race relations in this city. The problems on the Plaza are with BLACK teenagers.
Call it what you will – since there are no white teens causing the problems. This is a problem for anyone who enjoys the Plaza – so we all get to suffer because of the lack of parenting of these black delinquents.
Lots of black people said the cops did it. I hear that a lot. So I wanted to ask Councilman Reed a lot of questions. Such as:
Councilman Reed, I’ve talked to police. I’ve talked to victims. I’ve seen video. I’ve read Twitter streams and Facebook pages. I’ve read comments on Kansas City news sites. And every single one of these sources confirms one fact: That everyone involved in the dozens of episodes of racial violence and lawlessness at the Kansas City Plaza is black.
Or are all those observers as racist as the police? Selectively noticing just the black people? Are whites or Asians or Amish also making the Plaza a mini-war zone? And are police ignoring them?
If so, did you happen to get their names? Or perhaps a video? There are lots of people who have seen the Plaza close up during this mob violence, including the mayor. He was 50 yards away when someone shot a gun and he had to dive into the bushes.
So digging up a few white or Asian or Amish perpetrators should not be difficult. Just one would be fine.
Another question: Councilman Reed: I’ve documented more than 500 episodes of racial violence in White Girl Bleed a Lot, not too much different than Kansas City. Some bigger. Some smaller. Some more violent. Some less.
And a thousand more in this book.
Sometimes people, like you, say it is not just black people causing the mob violence and lawlessness. I keep asking for videos, as I did on the air at KCMO. Still waiting. What do you think of people who charge racism without proof? Isn’t that an even more treacherous form of racism?
There are of course some brave and brilliant voices on the topic of race. Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele and Taleeb Starkes to name a tiny sliver of those speaking out against the ignorant political class.
But I still see so much resentment. So much anger. So much racism that appears in public that is not only condoned, it is praised.
Just a few days before trying to talk with the elusive councilman, I read an article by a radio station executive who said black radio was the victim of all sorts of sinister plots: He talked about “the hateful indifference to Blacks that dominates so much of what is considered mainstream media.” That crooked ratings systems have “deprived Black radio of a fair share of advertising revenue.” 240
This is a good example of Critical Race Theory in action: White racism is everywhere. White racism is permanent. White racism explains everything. That’s former Harvard Professor Derrick Bell talking. You remember: The President’s friend from Harvard.241
Former CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien criticized white people for refusing to talk about race. She said it makes them uncomfortable.242 What that really means is that fewer and fewer people are interested in racial monologues full of excuses for black pathology posing as genuine dialogue about a pressing problem.
Councilman Reed, another question: You want honesty? Then can you please honestly tell me where black people in Kansas City got the idea that they can visibly and publicly break the law, hurt people, destroy property, over and over and over?
Then brag on Twitter how much fun they had doing it? And then get you to pretend they are the victims?
Last question: You wouldn’t have anything to do with that, would you Councilman? Honestly?
Damn. Cleaver was right: The violence continued regularly in 2014.243
As bad as it is in Kansas City, few would trade places with what happens in Fresno twice a year.