It is hard to say who’s more dangerous: The thugs responsible for an epidemic of black mob violence and black on white crime, or the reporters who excuse, condone, encourage, deny and even lie about it.
Like Abe Aamidor, for example. Aamidor is the writer behind a story for the Society of Professional Journalists’ Quill magazine called When Race Is Relevant.434 Short answer: Always. Unless it’s about black violence. Then never.
The SPJ -- America’s largest club for reporters -- is already one of the most race-conscious groups in the country. And that is easy to see in every aspect of SPJ’s operations, including its magazine, web site, blogs, meetings, training, conventions and membership.
Race and diversity and affirmative action are grafted onto each and every part of this group. But race and crime? Nada.
Aamidor is wondering if that is a good idea. Aamidor does not ask about the relationship between race and crime. Or how black violence and black on white crime are astronomically out of proportion. The numbers are overwhelming and well known already. Even to the most disingenuous reporter.
Aamidor asks a different question: How much should the members of America’s largest journalism group let people know about it?
Answer: Not much.
Aamidor ignores how often SPJ members already report about race. How, every day, we read about the black caucuses, black colleges, black churches, black labor unions, black businesses, black neighborhoods, black leaders, relentless black victimization at the hands of white supremacy, and on and on and on.
How these stories are loaded with awards and lauded for their sensitivity.
Many of these stories are written by members of the SPJ and the National Association of Black Journalists -- where the parents of Trayvon Martin were treated like rock stars and given a standing ovation at its 2013 convention.
But when it comes to reporting on black on white crime, or black mob violence, Aamidor and his cronies are about as forthcoming as Tupac bleeding out on a Las Vegas street.
The Great One himself Thomas Sowell wrote a column (one of three!) for the National Review citing White Girl Bleed a Lot and wondering why reporters ignore racial violence.435
So Aamidor took up the challenge and asked ‘what’s a reporter to do?’
Aside from following a link in the main photo of his article which connects to a web site of the “Party for Socialism and Liberation,” (that must be a cheap shot because it feels so good!) here’s the best answer Aamidor could muster: “Working journalists may need to look no further than their own media outlet’s policies, which likely will offer guidance on how to report on race and crime.”
Fair enough. Let’s check Aamidor’s former paper, The Indianapolis Star, where he toiled for 22 years. The Star’s policy toward reporting race and crime can be summed up in one word: Don’t.
One hour after I read Aamidor’s piece, I came across a Tweet about one of the more popular euphemisms for black mob violence: Large fights. This one in Indianapolis, involving 80 people with baseball bats and other weapons. Everyone was black.
The next day, the Indy Star dutifully reported some of the details of the riot. Except the race. The paper also dutifully reported that this kind of large-scale violence had happened twice before in the last year. And dutifully gave some details. Except the race.436
Dutifully understating the frequency and intensity of black mob violence in Indianapolis by a factor of at least ten. If not 20 or 100. Or 100,000.
Understating? That is a polite way of saying, well ... you know.
In the last three years, there have been dozens of episodes of racial violence in this once bucolic slice of Middle America. Many documented in White Girl Bleed a Lot.
Much of it on video.
But because the participants are not carrying signs with racist slogans, or promoting violent black revolution as some did during a recent public meeting in Indianapolis, many reporters say there is no evidence of racial violence in Indianapolis. Or anywhere else.
If they do not report it, it does not exist. And if it does not exist, how can they report it?
Aamidor got that part right.
Every discussion of black mob violence in Indianapolis and how the media and city officials cover it must include the Indiana Black Expo.
Eric Holder is going to hate this.
The same day the Attorney General was telling the members of a black sorority how we should condemn the “underlying attitudes, mistaken beliefs and stereotypes” that create racial strife, the City of Indianapolis was implementing the single largest case of racial profiling in the history of this country.437
All focused on the Friday and Saturday night in July 2013 when the streets of downtown Indianapolis were full from some of the 250,000 black people attending the Indiana Black Expo.
Much like George Zimmerman knew that black people were responsible for a crime wave in his town, city officials “know” the Black Expo has a ten-year history of intense and frequent violence and lawlessness.
So they are getting ready for more. That is racial profiling. Right, Aamidor?
Over the last ten years, this annual, week-long celebration of racial consciousness has been the site of shootings, assaults, property destruction, violence against police, and large scale mayhem that can only be called riots.
Much of it on video for your viewing pleasure.
The summer of 2010 was probably the worst. Though some locals sipping lemonade on their porches disagree on that. Some say 2009 was worse. Or 2005. Pick a year.
After the Black Expo let out for the evening, thousands of black people hit the streets of downtown. Chaos and violence followed. At least ten people were shot. A lot more were rampaging through downtown, destroying property and creating mayhem. 438
A lot of it on video. All just a few weeks after Al Sharpton himself appeared in Indianapolis to complain about racist police. It got so bad even the Indy Star could no longer ignore it:439
“Although none of the shootings or fights was directly connected to Summer Celebration events or venues, the annual celebration of black culture that attracts more than 200,000 people downtown during its 11-day run has been inescapably tied to the violence.”
By 2014, the Indy Star house liberal Erika Smith had to admit she felt “dread” at the prospect of black violence during the upcoming Expo. 440
It took ten years of relentless violence, but police felt the same dread in 2013. That is why hundreds of cops smothered the downtown in anticipation of more black mob violence during the Black Expo. Especially since the Expo occurred in the week following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the death of Trayvon Martin.
When violence was below expectations, some accused the police of racial profiling. And when you think about it, of course they are right: The world’s largest Black Expo is the site of predictable black violence.
Sometimes their racial profiling leads to exasperation: “Why did we find an AK-47 in the back of someone’s car?” asked Frank Straub, director of public safety, about the 2010 rampage.
No one knew, other than the fact the violence and gunplay are traditions at the Black Expo – despite the hundreds of police officers on the street to stop it.
Local officials have no idea what is causing the violence. Or what to do about it. Except pretend it does not exist and pray that reporters go along with this fiction.
Their coverage shows that sometimes prayers are answered.
During the Black Expo, the streets of downtown were full of the latest and greatest in crowd control. Towers and bright lights are the newest thing: The same kind of portable towers that football coaches move on and off their fields to keep an eye on practice, were instead full of police with infra-red cameras and high powered weapons.
All in touch with an army of police officers on the ground. All for the Black Expo.
Shortly after the 2013 Indiana Black Expo, an Indianapolis family was the subject of a brutal home invasion that we will hear more about later. When readers demanded more information about the alleged assailants, the editor said no:
“If and when we have a detailed description of the suspects -- and not merely race and gender, but something that could reasonably help the public identify individuals -- that information will be included.”
That was from Alvie Lindsey, one of big editors at the Indy Star. 441
The preparations during the Memorial Day holiday for Black Beach Week in Miami Beach were just as intense.442
More racial profiling.
And up the road in South Carolina, cops from throughout the region were on standby as tens of thousands of black people descended on the Myrtle Beach area for Black Biker Week.
More racial profiling.
Still not convinced? Consider the police presence at the Indianapolis 500 just a few weeks before the 2013 expo. Cops wrote tickets to 181 people, most alcohol-related. There were one or two cases of violence. That’s it.
Just like 2012. And the year before. And the year before that. Yet the Indy 500 attracts far more people -- 300,000 to 400,000 -- with far fewer police. Far less law breaking.
One crowd is black. The other white.
One event is a police state. The other a police vacation. Though by 2014 that had started to change when black mob violence and crime came to some of the festivities preceding the race.
Black mob violence in Indy is hardly limited to the Black Expo.
Downtown Indianapolis has been the site of dozens of cases of large-scale black mob violence over the last three years. The Indy Star reports these perpetrators as “unruly teens,” or “unruly youths” or any number of other euphemisms. But the videos tell the story.443
The mobs are black. Everyone in Indy knows that. Now you do too.
Downtown Indy is supposed to be a gleaming center of commerce and government and tourism. Instead, downtown on weekends today often resembles an armed camp with police officers, barricades, helicopters, and an increasing number of empty storefronts from merchants who no longer wish to tolerate the black mob violence that occurs with regular and violent intensity.
Every town has a preacher. A go-to guy to explain the black mob violence and let everyone know that it’s all going to be alright if we just cough up lots more free stuff. In Indianapolis, that guy is Rev. Charles Harrison.
Harrison is usually in ‘the kids are alright’ camp. But every once in a while he leaves the reservation, as he did 2013. The downtown mall had just been the scene of several episodes of black mob violence and Harrison was calling for a curfew.
The mall owners resisted. A role switch from other cities.
“They are underestimating these kids today,” Harrison said. “These kids are more dangerous than what we had to deal with 10 or 15 years ago.”
No one is pretending any of the kids looked like Larry Bird.
Instead of a mall curfew, city officials created a Maginot Line-like wall around the downtown. Black people hopped on a bus to one of the suburban malls and wreaked havoc there.
“We’re not surprised they moved to the Castleton mall,” said Harrison. “We are in one location, they’ll move to another.”
In January 2015, they did it again: Large groups of black people gathered at Castleton, and large groups of reporters pretended the rioters were not black and that they had no idea this kind of thing had ever happened before.445
By July 4, of 2013, even the Indy Star knew there was a problem downtown. Here’s how they described it: “a city core overrun by unsupervised teenagers who fight each other and occasionally fire weapons.” 446
On July 4, despite dogs and helicopters and more than 100 police officers on the street, it happened again. But if you wanted to get the real flavor of the violence from the Indy Star, skip the Aamidor acolytes masquerading as reporters and go directly to the readers:
James Parson posted on the IndyStar.com:447
“I was downtown with my family last night, I saw the gangs roaming the streets. I will not be coming downtown ever again, nor will my family.
The insults that were thrown at my family by the black gangsters were out of line. One called my wife a fat whore. Glad to see that Ballard is doing something about these killers in training. I will not be back downtown. If you value your life you will not come either. The gangs own the streets in our city.”
Mark Magers chimed in:
“I agree James! I was downtown for the fireworks with friends and the gangs were ominous and ugly. What is going on downtown? We used to take pride in presenting a safe and fun filled experience downtown.
I too will not be back and next year will go to the Geist "blast on the bridge". A better show and nicer group of people!”
The national headquarters of the Society of Professional Journalists is four miles from the epicenter of this racial violence. But somehow, the black mob violence as a regular feature of the largest black expo in America did not make it into Aamidor’s discussion.
Or the Indy Star coverage.
He did however, talk about how television news directors in Pittsburgh met in 2011 with black activists to form an agreement to reduce the coverage of black crime in that city. Taking it from zero to less than zero.448
Aamidor reports with a tone of admiration how the head of Black Empowerment Project said observing crime is bad for white and black people:
“If the only information about black people is what’s in the news, there’s a reason why the unemployment rate is astronomic and why we have all these negative issues — because the imaging of black people is extremely negative,” said Black Political Empowerment Project president Tim Stevens.
“Not only does it affect the viewpoint of white people with their thoughts on black people, I say it affects the psychology of black people.”
And before I read this I thought I had already heard every conceivable excuse for black mob violence. Guess it is what you learn after you think you know it all that counts.
No news whether local farmers are complaining about the weather reports. No news from Aamidor about how many people place themselves into fatally dangerous situations because their local media ignores, denies, excuses and even condones this kind of crime.
So here are the choices: Aamidor and his cronies do not know R.A.T. (Routine Activity Theory) and the routine violence white people can expect in black neighborhoods. Or they do know, and do not want to let the rest of us know.
If we knew where they lived, that would give us a clue, wouldn’t it, Mr. Aamidor?
Aamidor and the Indy Star might be too queasy to look racial violence right in the eye, but not everyone there ignores it. Writing in the Indiana Barrister, local attorney Abdul Hakim-Shabazz, is out of patience with people who have too much patience for black pathology:449
It’s time for some tough love in this town. There is a criminal element in this town that consists primarily of young black men.
The recent attacks on the Monon; the perpetrators were young black men. The “Pop It Off Boys” gang; young black men.
The most high ridden crime areas of the city, who are the bad guys? Say it with me, they are usually young black men.
This may be painful, but the truth hurts. ... There is also something even more wrong when people will read this column and get mad at me and call me a “sellout” or an “Uncle Tom” because I was the guy who was brave enough to tell truth.
Indianapolis, you have a problem. Your problem is young, black men who are out of control. It’s time to step up and start making examples out of people.
Decent citizens black and white should not have to live in fear of urban terrorists.
The elderly man who marched for civil rights in the 1950’s and 60’s should not have to live in fear because some Robin Hoodlum doesn’t know how to honor the social contract.
Not coming soon to your local chapter of the apologists at the Society of Professional Journalists and National Association of Black Journalists.
Postscript: One of the stated goals in the SPJ Mission Statement is to “To encourage diversity in journalism.” Of the 35 staffers and members of the board of directors of the Society of Professional Journalists, none is black.
Aamidor?
Aamidor?
Aamidor?