Posted on 08/24/2011 8:42:33 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
We cannot police hopelessness and despair!
There are those who are angered and surprised by the violence of urban “Flash Mobs” (quickly forming groups of young people using technology to organize), especially crowds of young Black men, descending on mostly White, affluent downtown American cities. However, if we analyze this phenomenon, it is not so surprising. In fact, it is highly predictable. While there is no justification for young Black men to rob and beat people of any race, the activities of flash mobs are easily understandable in the context of recent social history and current economic conditions.
Most of these young men are poor, desperate and hopeless. They come from broken families and broken communities. They have been failed by their schools and by social and faith organizations in their communities. They don’t have jobs and many of them will never have jobs. They live at the bottom rung of society. The kind of havoc they wreak among us through “flash mobbing” is the kind of havoc they have lived with their entire young lives. For them, there is a perverse kind of justice and sense of fairness in their ability to create flash mobs that breathe terror into the hearts of other Americans.
Predictive factors for young Black males participating in the activities of violent flash mobs in Chicago are shown by recent data:
■This summer, 90% of young Black men in Chicago between 16 and 19 years old are unemployed. ■Only 44% of Black males graduate with a high school diploma from Chicago public schools. ■Only three out of 100 Black boys who start kindergarten in the Chicago Public Schools earn a bachelors degree by age 25. ■70% of Black children in America are born into and live in single, female-headed households that are usually impoverished. ■Black males are 6% of Illinois’ population but they represent 60% of the state’s prison population.
The power and strength of a flash mob are in its large number of congregants and in its ability to assemble quickly and to disband equally as fast. The word “flash” is an allusion to social media — texting, smart phones Twitter and Facebook. Flash media, an effective tool for organizing a social cause, is the same media that brought down the government of Egypt. Now inner-city youth are using this same media, but instead of toppling governments, they “topple” Macy’s, Neiman Marcus and Old Navy, and they steal IPads and IPhones from defenseless citizens.
The message from the flash mob to us is even more threatening than the mob itself. That message is, “You can’t control us! You don’t scare us! Your police don’t scare us! Your prisons don’t scare us! We are mightier than you! We will take what you have because you have given us few other options in life for earning similar things. And most importantly, we will take your peace of mind. Just as we in our communities cannot ever feel secure, now neither can you! We are more afraid of continuing to live our lives as they are than we are of you locking us up. What do we have to lose? For once, we are more powerful than you!”
Flash mobs are not new. In Black communities across America for the past 30 years, large groups of Black males have attacked others. In the past few years, jobless, desperate, hopeless youth have rioted in France, Greece, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Tunisia, and Egypt in efforts eerily similar to America’s flash mobs, but on a much larger scale and with politically clear motives and demands. These youth have taken over business districts, cities and countries and they have destroyed billions of dollars in property while toppling governments. The same root causes for these youth riots and disturbances in Europe and Northern Africa are producing similar actions, and possibly similar politically conscious attitudes, in the youth of Chicago, New York City, Charlotte, Baltimore, Boston, Philadelphia and other American cities.
Politicians and the police are working under the false and dangerous assumption that hopelessness and despair can be policed. The police are out-numbered and out-maneuvered in this battle of minds, spirits, bodies and technology. Even as thirty-three flash mobbers were arrested in Chicago this past week, the communities in Chicago were producing a thousand more potential flash mobbers to replace them. When Black boys are not reading at grade level by the third grade, we are creating conditions for a flash mob. When Black teenagers cannot find meaningful work, we are creating conditions for a flash mob. When young Black boys do not have suitable role models and mentors, we are creating conditions for a flash mob.
The best way to deter a violent flash mob is to stop it from forming. The best time to stop it from forming is when the potential congregants are 2 and 3 years old, not when they are 16, 20 and 30 years old. The best weapons against flash mobs are jobs, not police with guns; education, not incarceration; and positive guidance and direction, not threats or curses. Can flash mobs be stopped? Absolutely. Is America working properly to stop them? Absolutely not.
Welcome to the year 2011 where ethics, sociology, economics, criminology, politics and technology cross! The flash mobbers are trying to tell us, “You can’t stop us, but with your help, we can stop ourselves!”
The author is correct that you have to stop this when kids are very young. If uneducated and uncontrolled kids get into the prime criminal years, they are lost to society.
How will your plans change if they arrive better armed than you and in far greater numbers, as happens in South Africa?
Good article. The roots of the problem have to be addressed. And that is DADS. Education helps but it’s the missing DADS that are the root.
The government gives them to the “poor”.
“We are creating conditions for a flash mob.” Yes. “We” are responsible. The flash mobbers bear no responsibility for their actions. They are innocent, guiltless. They are good boys. Just ask their mothers. How could we be so cruel. Not all of them has $200 tennis shoes, cell phones and a gold tooth. Perhaps a new federal program could solve this.
What Good Can a Handgun Do Against An Army?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/2312894/posts
” The best weapons against flash mobs are jobs, not police with guns”
Hey! Mr. Tyrone Baggy Pants! Pretty please will you accept this job to take cash from sales to the bank at the end of the day?
So under this mindset if a person grows up with rich people and later in life isn’t rich but his companions are he has no choice but white collar crime.
They never read the words of Admiral Yamamoto.
These people whining about how bad things are for blacks kill me. When my parents were young, there were stores and restaurants they couldn’t go into. In some stores, they couldn’t try on clothes. There were many neighborhoods that were closed to them, even if they had the money to buy property in them.
And yet, none in my parents’ generation sought to rob, beat, and harass others to take what they wanted. They got educations, and yes, some of them marched on Washington, they used their power of the vote and they changed their lives and the lives of their children.
Now we’ve got this mess of young black males who want to do everything but blame themselves for their own predicament. Give me a break. They make me sick.
Oh, I forgot the obligitory gold tooth. And the gun, gotta have one of those.
Wrong. I do believe it. Right. This will not end well.
Society did not create the conditions in which they live. They’ve done that to themselves. As Barack Obama says, only in America is his story possible. Opportunity exists for those who want it and are willing to work for it.
Laziness, irresponsibility, and violence will keep them in their current conditions.
Wanna bet?
General "Buck" Turgidson: "Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks..."
Think of all the dems that can become "collateral damage."
Urban dictionary:Welfare Blackberry already a meme two years ago - think it's gotten better since, or...?
If you thought this wasn't happening you are a very long ways behind the advance of the welfare state in the United States. If you want your stomach really turned I can show you multiple recent, quarter-million-dollar plus, brand-new housing developments being constructed exclusively for welfare cases - at least one, not even for American welfare cases but for imported Somali welfare cases! We are not as far behind England as many like to think.
These criminals are going to "flash" the wrong person and get shot, and most of us won't shed a single tear.
excellent description!
Nah, we'll kick their A$$es sideways. An armed populous won't put up with these Ghetto “Gangstas” acting like typical Detroiters. Sorry to be harsh, but I grew up just outside of Detroit, and watched first hand what the welfare mentality has done to these people.
Black people have a bigger problem than Whitey. Until they start taking responsibility for the condition their in, they'll never change. So sad they can't see what their White liberal “Masters” have done to them!
This is what liberal policies and flash mobs have done to Detroit:
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