No Time To Hate

Special Commentary
by Kelvin Wade

“Take those…hoodies down…Pull your pants up and buy a belt ‘cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt. If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t hire you ‘cause you look like you’re crazy. You have damaged your own race.” ---Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter

Philadelphia has seen several flash mobs of teen violence in recent weeks. Flash mobs are when people use social networking to arrange for a group to come together at an appointed place or time. In the past, people came together to perform a dance or song in public as a form of street theater. Lately, flash mobs are calling people together for violence and rioting. We’re seeing it in London, Israel and other countries and we’re seeing it in this country.

Police departments are no match for a sudden mob of 1,000 teenagers on the warpath. The anonymity of a large crowd grants these hooligans license to terrorize law abiding citizens, and cause destruction and chaos. They can happen at any place and any time based on a prearranged setup on Twitter, Facebook and other media.

This is frightening trend. What happens when someone puts together a flash mob to rob a department store? Imagine a thousand people descending upon a Walmart to loot the store? Once that trend begins it could be replicated nationally and globally. No law enforcement department is prepared on such short notice to deal with sudden civil disobedience on that scale.

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, the city’s third black mayor, took to his church pulpit to blast young African-Americans participating in violent flash mobs in his city. His words were harsh but necessary. Someone has to say it aloud. This behavior is unacceptable.

Just last week, a video went viral of young thugs opening fire on a city bus in Philly. This isn’t some post-apocalyptic war movie. This isn’t the old west. This is a major U.S. city where a small segment of the population has taken to lawlessness like fish to swimming.

It doesn’t help that last week also saw black youths attacking whites at the Wisconsin state fair. Witnesses described hundreds of black teens attacking white fairgoers upon the fair closing. There were brutal tales of black youths repeatedly beating and kicking defenseless white teens. One report said there’d been 11 injuries and 31 arrests.

I know there is a lot of pain and despair in the black community. Recessions often hit minorities like depressions. While the national unemployment rate is 9.1%, it’s 16% for blacks. Roughly 30% of working age blacks in Philadelphia are not working. In Milwaukee, 34% of blacks are unemployed. That’s way too many idle hands just awaiting the devil’s instructions.

Still, that’s no excuse for violence. The economy has hit everyone hard. And there’s never an excuse for racially motivated attacks. It’s unacceptable behavior. Racial attacks must be condemned in the strongest terms because we’ve worked so hard to try to get past these divisions. The danger is that the victims can be anyone. And in its wake, racial violence only begets more hatred, paranoia and more racial violence. There are no winners.

Also, in a horrific case, in Jackson, Mississippi, a group of 7 white teens beat and ran over and killed 49 year old James Craig Anderson solely on the basis of race. The teens were out looking for any black person to attack and sadly Mr. Anderson was the first one they found after pulling off the freeway.

While Mayor Nutter directed his message to black youth because the recent mobs have been African-American, this is a problem that spans across racial lines. Anyone can organize these flash mobs. Anyone can get a group of people together to perpetrate acts of violence.

It’s unacceptable. We’ve got to say enough’s enough. It’s decent folks of all races who have to stand up and say we’re not going to let this go on. And I applaud Mayor Nutter for having the guts to stand up and call these young punks out. Clean up your act, get yourselves together, get an education and get out and look for a job. Or just look for something constructive instead of destructive to do.

We don't need some black punks in hoodies and sagging pants, walking stereotypes, to give white folks license to lump us together. Why play into the hands of detractors? Why tarnish the community by going out like a sucker? Who wants to live their life as a pathetic cliche'? I get what Michael Nutter is saying when he says they've damaged their own race. This is the kind of thing that makes blacks cringe. We all end up stigmatized by a few idiots' behavior.

Times are hard enough without people making them harder with racial hatred and nonsense.