While languishing in the hospital, this was the story that I felt most frustrated about not being able to post. Not that I could get a single, clear, spin-free account of what happened. In the aftermath of some Cincinnati event or festival or something, a black man and a white one got into a verbal altercation. The white guy seems to have uttered a racial slur, precipitating a brawl that was quickly joined by a mob of black youths who beat up the white guy and then turned their anger on a white woman who tried to intervene, knocking her unconscious and kicking her as she lay helpless on the ground. An estimated hundred bystanders, most or all of them black, stood by taking videos, laughing, and cheering the mob violence on. There was only one call to 911.
1. Almost all of the national coverage of this incident has been on Fox News. The New York Times, interestingly, hasn’t reported the story at all. The natural question has been raised: If a black man and woman had been attacked and beaten by a mob of young whites as 100 white bystanders cheered them on, there would be protests in the streets and calls for “justice.” Why the double standard?
2. One Cincinnati official after another disgraced the city. The police chief criticized the news media for “emphasizing the negative,” saying that except for the horrific racial violence it had been great weekend for the city. Victoria Parks, the Cincinnati City Council’s President Pro Tem, wrote on Facebook that the two white victims ” begged for that beat down! I am grateful for the whole story.” Nice. Why do black communities have disproportionately high rates of violence? Because those communities have disproportionate numbers of racist, hateful leaders like Parks.
3. For the record, racial epithets in such encounters are what the law calls “fighting words.” They don’t justify violence of course, but they are not advisable or defensible in any context, particularly in a substantially black neighborhood.
4. Is this really an event of national significance? A white asshole uses a racist epithet, a black asshole responds violently, then mob psychology and the bystander effect do the rest. The only revelation is the double standards of Democratic officials and the Axis media…but is that really a revelation?
5. The conservative media’s analysis is that the incident reveals the depth of anti-white racism—you know, the kind that is impossible and doesn’t exist?—in the wake of Black Lives Matter, critical race theory, the “1619 Project” and DEI mania. Certainly anti-white racism in the U.S. is at unhealthy and unstable levels. I blame Barack and Michelle Obama, who made it respectable to see whites as villains and to treat them accordingly.
Ethics Alarms 
Feral animals!
PWS
The media account that I read online (Fox News) said, “In the video, someone can be heard yelling the N-word as the violence begins to unfold, though it is unclear who exactly said it and to whom it was directed.”
Watching the video, I noted that the “N-word” is bleeped out, making it impossible to tell who said it. Of course, the racialists trying to “shape the narrative” are going to allege that a white man’s use of a racial slur precipitated the beat-down.
I wonder how many rappers have experienced a physical beat-down for all the racial slurs and epithets that lace their music. Thousands? The number has to be in the hundreds at least…
The mob reaction reminded me somewhat of what occurred on january sixth. A spur of the moment foolishness.
Nice to have you back.
As somebody who yearly visits the Rochester International Jazz Festival (RIJF) I was negatively surprised to hear about racially charged violence about a similar music festival in Cincinnati. The majority of the attendants at RIJF are retirement age and part of the educated classes. The festival is downtown in the proud murder capital of New York, and downtown is bordered by a number of poor and high crime neighborhoods. The festival is praised as a tool for racial reconciliation. I have never heard of violence and crime related to RIJF.
So I started wondering why things are different in Cincinnati, and the first thing I discovered that the festival is actually called the Cincinnati Music Festival, and not the Cincinnati Jazz Festival, as many Internet news sources erroneously reported. LL Cool J was one of the mainliners. YouTube videos showed a stadium with a public in which I could not discover a single person who was not black. This festival is held downtown, using the sports stadiums near the business center.
Matt Walsh showed an interview with one of the patrons who mentioned that this festival was a great opportunity to give back to the black community by patronizing black owned businesses downtown.
In 2014 Hamilton County Juvenile Court judge Tracie Hunter was sentenced to six months in jail for various felony charges. This sparked outrage in the black community, plus a boycott of non-black businesses.
In 2018 a downtown restaurant Knockback Nats decided to close the restaurant for renovations during the festival. This lead to charges of racism, and an inspection of the Cincinnati Health Department.
Also via X Mike Cernovich spread the impression that people were advised not to attend downtown or leave downtown for reasons of safety.
All if this gives me the impression that during the music festival downtown Cincinnati is not a welcoming place for anybody who is not black. This indicates that there is a much bigger issue going on in Cincinnati than one unfortunate incident. The festival is part of a racial tinderbox, and all it takes is one spark to create a conflagration.
The only media that pay attention to this issue are a number of YouTube channels and Fox News, as Jack mentioned. I sense a bit of a cultural shift where at least half of the population (which includes those who identify with MAGA, but also the Fetterman Democrats) is not afraid anymore to be called racist, but is willing to call out bad behavior from minorities, e.g. the “ghetto” culture; this includes black influencers as Anton Daniels, Melanie King, J.R. Wisdom and others. I think it is an improvement that we can now easier discuss taboo issues surrounding race, were bad behavior is being called out by members of all races. Cincinnati City Councilor Victoria Parks is way behind the eight ball on this point, and needs to get with the program as the times are changing and the wind is blowing a different direction. The term “black fatigue” needs to be followed at YouTube, as many people including black people are expressing that they are tired of ghetto culture. This was most apparent after another incident involving a brawl at a Carnival Cruise where 24 people were arrested after a brawl, after which Carnival Cruise banned the playing of rap music in public areas via devices brought on ship by the passengers; this to acclaim of many black influencers.
Hard to demonstrate a negative, but I’ve done some research and the Carnival rap ban seems to be misinformation, especially to connect it to the brawl (which appears to be true). From what I can see, there is only a relatively new (late 2024) ban on personal speakers. I don’t suppose you have a reference?
You know, when the Indian community in Jersey City was targeted by a bunch of yahoos who called themselves the Dotbusters, the only way it ended was when they started establishing their own street gangs and fighting back.
The Protestants in Northern Ireland eventually got tired of being targeted by the Catholic IRA, and formed organizations like the Ulster defense League to fight back. I don’t see why at this point white people shouldn’t start fighting back.
It’s 2025, not 2020, the nation is not paralyzed by a misguided lockdown and the president knows how to use his power. Everyone was perfectly okay with the Democratic party using black lives matter as a militia like the SA 5 years ago.
Maybe it’s time the GOP started using groups like The proud boys and bikers has their own militia. Of course it’s just going to end up doing more damage, but it’s going to send a message that maybe needs to be sent: that there is no entitlement to mass violence by one particular community while no one else is allowed to do it.
I respectfully disagree with this analysis. The only way to reduce this type of behavior is when society at large is willing to call out ghetto behavior for what it is, namely a moral and social blight. No more cowardice and walking on eggshells on sensitive racial issues, no more excuses such as “systemic racism”, but simply calling a spade a spade and consistent enforcement of standards and discipline at schools and elsewhere, and law and order by the police and in the courts. Proud Boys and biker gangs are similarly dysfunctional; we do not need that in a decent society.
But in the meantime a bonk on the head gets the message across: “this behavior needs to stop.”
From what I’ve read of human history and people’s personal experiences, a “bonk on the head” can have at least three effects for an individual or group.
1) They can find more constructive ways to get what they want.
2) They can keep their heads down and do whatever the bonker tells them to do, hoping for kindness but tolerating cruelty as “just the way the world is.”
3) They can conclude that the bonker is an oppressive tyrant and fight them tooth and nail. Sometimes they might even be right.
There are multiple factors that influence which of these things happen. What do you think those are?
I’m not sure how to answer this. I meant a bonk on the head to send the message to someone who is engaging in objectionable behavior to stop that objectionable behavior, on pain of getting hurt. That assumes that other less violent means have been tried and have failed.
Thanks, that helps clarify. What other, less violent means are we assuming people tried?
Maybe we should have an ethics quiz about whether Steve deserves a bonk on the head.
Lawless behavior cannot be solved by more lawlessness. Lawlessness begets lawlessness. Two wrongs do not make a right. Strict enforcement of the law has to be part of the solution.
If you bonk me on the head, you are going to get the Southeast Asian geography lesson.
There is an excellent essay entitled “An Inconvenient Black Truth” by Chris Arnell on the reasons for much of this.
I encourage others to read it. https://mrchrisarnell.com/p/an-inconvenient-black-truth
Thanks Chris; wow, into my permanent EA files it goes!
MONEY QUOTE: “people who bring with them not just economic struggle, BUT A DEEPLY DYSFUNCTIONAL WORLDVIEW — a culture that glorifies aggression, rejects discipline, and ridicules order.” (bolds/caps/italics mine)
MONEY QUOTE, 2.0: Tyranny wears a lab coat, now.”
PWS
I have a problem with Sowell’s “former slaves emulated white crackers” theory to explain the roots of ghetto “culture.” Every society has its bad actor demographic. It’s how they are treated that matters. Are they shunned or celebrated? “Crackers” are not celebrated. I think it’s more accurate to theorize some former slaves emulated assholes. And doubtless, among former slaves, there were a standard issue percentage of home-grown assholes who simply flourished.
OB
I think what Sowell was referring to was an attitude that is often displayed in lower socio-economic strata. Adopting the behaviors of whites who would solve problems physically rather than rationally would make sense if that was their only exposure. Kind of like the axiom “When in Rome do as the Romans do”. Some of it was to simply survive in a racist culture.
Dare I ask whether “ghetto culture” can trace its roots back to African tribalism? See, e.g.: current day Somalia? Uganda? Sudan?
“See, e.g.: current day Somalia? Uganda? Sudan?“
Or, domestically, Dearborn, Columbus, Seattle, Minneapolis, etc.
PWS
No it doesn’t. Prior to the sixties the black population did not exhibit ghetto culture, and other forms of dysfunction; e.g. the marriage rate was even higher than the white population. Also, black immigrants from Sudan, Nigeria etc. are just as successful than immigrants from India, Korea, Vietnam etc. So this phenomenon is a homegrown thing.
What happened in the sixties was counterculture, social upheaval, sexual revolution, passing of major civil rights legislation, plus the murder of the Kennedy’s, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.
In addition Lyndon B Johnson started the War on Poverty, and signed welfare laws; he is rumored to have said when signing these Great Society laws “I’ll have those n*gg**s voting Democrat for the next two hundred years”.
LBJ was a racist who used the N word frequently, and he was also a cynical politician who knew how to handle power.
The following article demonstrates the cynical complicity of the Democrats for the current state of race in the USA, and the continuing poverty of black people.
https://mrchrisarnell.com/p/black-lies-matter
I agree. The article by Paul linked above refers to some blacks adopting the attitudes of what would euphemistically be called back in the day “poor white trash” and still called, though not euphemistically, “poor white trash”.
Stuck at the bottom of the economic scale with lower class whites who exhibited (and some still do: read J. D. Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” where he explains the difficulty of breaking out of that mindset even when you’re out of that environment) self-destructive behavior, some blacks were influenced by the same mannerisms and attitudes.
Remember when Lefty revered Vance? Good times…
PWS
And Elon, too!
“Star Trek: Discovery” made reference to Elon Musk Junior High in an episode. Reddit fans (yes, I know) think it’s more dated than the Hippie episode of the original series.
Why would they think so?
It’s a unpleasant hypothesis, but I can see how the “redneck” culture hypothesis might possibly be true.
You can see the hypothesis developed in places like David Hackett Fischer’s book _Albion’s Seed_. That book is more than 30 years old now. It’s long!
He describes the four cultural folkways from England that resulted in four different cultural patterns in different parts of the 13 colonies. It’s a long book and I won’t bore you with the details. Wikipedia has a long summary, if I recall correctly.
Appalachia was in many parts settled by “borderers” from the England / Scotland borderland. Such people were good to settle in the mountain border territories of the Appalachians to keep hostile Indians further away from the settled farming regions. Appalachia was insecure and dangerous at first, but so was the border of England and Scotland.
These “borderers” from the Old World stayed in large part the same when settled here. They were clannish and pugnacious. They did not look to duly constituted authority to provide them with law and order. Instead they were accustomed to defending their property and honor with immediate force. Feuds were common.
(Another hypothesis is that such folk can tend to be shy and simply not accustomed to dealing with outsiders.)
The “knock down drag out fight” was common, including such tactics as biting off ears and noses. Eye gouging was a preferred trick.
If you think about the behavior of US President Andrew Jackson, you can see some of these traits. Jackson didn’t reason with people the way Benjamin Franklin did.
I’m sure there’s tons written on this cultural group besides the recent memoir from JD Vance. A few decades ago the book _Ecology of a cracker childhood_ had a few useful illustrations, including a description of a knock down drag out fight. If I recall correctly, the author was from the piney woods of South Georgia.
While I’m practicing sociology without a license, here’s another thought. In the post-Civil War sharecropping south, there may have been de facto the concept of “misdemeanor homicide.” Jason De Parle used the phrase in _American Dream_, in the chapter where he described the ancestral sharecropping environment in the Deep South of the three welfare mothers he chronicled up north in Chicago and Milwaukee.
charles w abbott
rochester NY
P.S.: Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending probably wrote, somewhere, that “every environment selects for something.” A nice phrase to ponder.
OB,
Of course, a lot of these answers about where ghetto culture come from are pat and easy and hard to refute. I don’t blame you for being skeptical.
This is far too big a topic for such as me to wrestle with. I wrote about the “borderer” issue, but “where ghetto culture” comes from is a big issue and most of us are not fully qualified to answer it. Though speculation can be fun.
Somebody, probably John McWhorter, wrote something like the following:
“Cultures can and do change, but trying to change a culture is a hard and thankless task.”
One of the most nuanced and sensitive book length treatments of “ghetto culture” I recall reading is Nicholas Lemann’s _Promised Land_, now more than 30 years old. Excerpts can be found at the _Atlantic_ archives, which is a public service.
https://www.theatlantic.com/past/docs/politics/poverty/origin1.htm
An interesting and perhaps ironic (?) aspect of the book is that it spends a lot of time discussing life in the Robert Taylor Homes, a low income housing project on Chicago’s South Side.
All those tower blocks have been torn down now. Steve Sailer, who is not safe for polite company but has a keen and inquisitive mind, says that the Democratic machine saw great opportunities in real estate development by tearing down all the projects (“‘jets” in the vernacular) and providing the tenants with Section 8 housing vouchers than might lure recipients to move out of Chicagoland altogether.
Some “before and after” photos of the Robert Taylor Homes can be found in coffee table books such as Camilo Jose Vergara’s _Unexpected Chicagoland_.
charles w abbott
rochester NY
P.S.: Personally I learned a lot from Gene Dattel’s _Reckoning with Race_, published by Encounter.
https://www.encounterbooks.com/books/reckoning-with-race/
When I envision the horrified hyperventilating this creates for guilt-suffocated career Lefties and vested Racial Grievance purveyors, I smile; that make me a bad person…?
PWS
Indeed, Cornelius, guilt-suffocated career Lefties and vested Racial Grievance purveyors wouldn’t read past the first paragraph. They would look at Arnell’s profile pic and decide that a white man doesn’t know a thing about Blackness. They would accuse him of denying that racism exists. He doesn’t agree with their narrative so – like the black soldiers he cites in his essay – ostracism is practiced.
AMG, I’m Paul W. Schlecht/PWS, which wordpress refuses to acknowledge; I no longer have the interest, energy, or desire to continue any effort to convince it otherwise.
Listening to, and internalizing, DEEP 7 figure salaried/8 figure net worth Black Victocrats (Don Lemon, Van Jones, Bakari Sellers, Marc Lamont Hill, Joy Reid, et al) preach how RAYcism prevents Black people from achieving upward mobility and wealth accumulation, results in a cultural, intellectual, financial, and existential death spiral.
The inimitable National Treasure Larry Elder lays bare the Staggeringly Hypocritical Irony
PWS
The following essay by the same author is also excellent:
https://mrchrisarnell.com/p/black-lies-matter
The author points out that the Democrat party is the main benefactor of dysfunctional black culture and thinking. I have always been surprised about why the Democrats have a lock on the black vote, and why Republicans have always been (mis)cast as the racists, given both parties roles during the antebellum and Jim Crow periods.
The 2024 election offers hope, as black males are more and more willing to walk away from the Democrats, and vote Republican. Barack Obama’s shaming of black men did not really help.
In the mean time, we should all become less timid in speaking out on sensitive topics, and be willing to call a spade a spade, and shame bad behavior. We should stop being afraid to be called racists. Terms like racist, fascist, and Nazi have lost their magic in 2024. I am not willing to go so far to carry these terms as a badge of honor, but we should willing to be frank, and call certain subcultures inferior, and that includes black ghetto culture.
Over the last ten or so years, I’ wondered when it became acceptable behavior to literally stomp on people’s heads with one’s Nikes in a brawl. Are sneakers not considered detrimental to people’s cranial areas? Literally kicking a person when they’re down is actually not just okay but admirable.?
If you’re fighting for your life, sure, but if you’re just doing it for fun or to get a point across or to inflict suffering, then no. Personally, I think a kick in the ribs is easier to hit with, and if you really want to nail somebody, the “Chinese gas pedal” where you stomp on his crotch and press down is most effective.
Seems to be SOP in ghetto “culture” for any confrontation, no matter how inconsequential. Which I find horrific.