White Girl Bleed a Lot (16 page)

Because I know how treacherous this ground can be, my rules are simple. As I mentioned in the introduction, there are no generalizations, no stereotypes, no apologies. Just the facts, ma’am.

That way, there are no land mines.

Perri got frustrated when I refused to join her “grad student sociology seminar with pizza on the floor” discussion. She turned up the heat, saying she finally figured out I was some kind of … She searched for something really, really bad to call me. Then
she found it. She figured out I was some kind of …
conservative
.

Reading from_the article, she quoted her favorite Chicago journalist, Ravi Baichwalan, a news reader at the local ABC affiliate. He said anyone who thought race was important in any way was an “idiot.” Of course Baichwalan wasn’t counting all the stories his station has done about the black caucus, black teachers association, black schools, black scholarships, and the like—stories, I must point out, that were sometimes written by members of the National Association of Black Journalists. Instead Baichwalan was talking about your humble correspondent. No big deal. He never got around to refuting my facts either. Other than to say he did not like them very much, or me for pointing them out.

Finally we arrive at the final step in Colin Flaherty’s sure-fire method of getting kicked off the air at one of America’s biggest black talk radio stations.

Step Three: Insist on the facts.

Liberals try to ignore the facts all the time. And then in the same breath, after they realize ignoring the facts is futile, they defend what happened. Perri echoed a caller who, following the Million Man March in 1995, said that white people should not be surprised if black people turn to “violence.” She said it wasn’t a race war but then defended it as though it were:

If the reason you wrote this article is to say the black people are ready to start a race war against white people, that is not true. The only reason they think that is because of all the damn dirt white people have done to them.

Which was echoing what a previous caller said.

It’s the same semantic gymnastics all the time. “The riots are not happening. But here is why they are happening.” Or in this case why they should happen.

Perri plowed ahead. “Ravi Baichwalan is very beloved,” Perri
said. “He’s on the number one station. You called him an idiot.”

Oh jeez! He thinks he is Deepak Chopra. She thinks he is Jesus Christ. And I think he is a clown. I knew this wouldn’t end well. “I didn’t call him an idiot. I called him a clown. He called me an idiot. Can we at least get our facts straight?”

I only
thought
he was an idiot. But that didn’t matter. I had crossed the line. Soon she was bragging to her Chicago audience about how she hung up on me because I was rude and “I would never get it” and she “was not going to put up with (my) madness.”

Told you it was easy.

MSNBC’s Golden Girl Answers the Question:
If this is happening, why haven’t I heard about it?

I
f someone sees a black person committing a crime, should they report it if it makes black people look bad?

Should Muslims cover up wife beating, genital mutilation, and childhood sexual abuse in their community just because saying something gives ammo to the Islamophobes?

These are seemingly simple questions, but they were difficult for MSNBC’s new golden girl, the host of the
Melissa Harris-Perry Show
. At least they were when Mona Eltahawy appeared to talk about her cover story in
Foreign Policy
magazine on misogyny in the Arab and Muslim world. Eltahawy had her arms broken in a demonstration and was tortured and raped in an Egyptian jail cell. So she seemed a bit surprised to find someone questioning her right to draw attention to these atrocities. Maybe because she thought she was in a news studio. Harris-Perry cleared that up right away:

I start with a little bit of trepidation in this conversation, in part because I know some of the critiques of this,” said Harris-Perry.
“The very idea that Western press, those that are not from these nations, who are not Muslim ourselves, who are not part of these traditions—
¹

It is worth interrupting here to note that the “traditions” that Harris-Perry was referring to were involuntary female circumcision, wife beating, and childhood sexual abuse. At least those are the only three Eltahawy had time to mention. Back to Harris-Perry:

—[people] can look at your article and say “Ahhh, look at how horrible those men, or those societies, or that religion is.” And that is part of the reason why, for example, we have an underreporting of rape and domestic violence in African American communities. Because we know the violence enacted on black men by police, so we often don’t call. Right?”
²

Eltahawy was bobbing her head in sympathy, though it was news to at least one viewer—not just that rape was underreported, but that Harris-Perry ever had any doubt about anything.

Then Harris-Perry brought in the big gun: Harvard Professor Leila Ahmed. Professor Ahmed questioned whether Eltahawy should have written the article at all. Not because it was false, but because it was true. It just made Muslims look bad. Obviously, Professor Ahmed was familiar with NBC’s guidelines for what makes news.

“You began, Melissa, by noting that some things in the African American community are not publicized precisely because of the racism,” said Dr. Ahmed as Harris-Perry nodded in agreement on the split screen. “Mona, I appreciate what you do,” continued Ahmed. “I would love it if—I understand if you want to get your message across. It’s an important message. But if possible [you should not] give fuel, fodder to people who simply hate Arabs
and Muslims in this climate of our day.”

Eltahawy seemed taken aback.

“That’s the whole point,” she said. “It’s not me that makes Muslims look bad. It’s those atrocities that make Muslims look bad. And as a writer, it’s my job to poke the painful places.”

It is not all that often that reporters and professors gather on a nationally televised news program to talk about withholding news stories if it makes their favorite ethnic or racial or religious group “look bad.”
³

They usually do that over dinner at MoveOn.org conventions.

I emailed Harris-Perry and asked if she ever refused to report a violent crime because it would make someone look bad. And if so, wouldn’t that make her an accessory? I asked the other two guests as well. I’m still waiting for a reply.

A version of this chapter appeared in World Net Daily. One of my readers sent it to Jennifer Pozner, the director of Women in Media & News, which of course is WIMN.

I happened to see that episode of the Melissa Harris-Perry Show, and I can tell you the discussion was nuanced, challenging, and not at all as represented below in the article you forwarded.

I am wondering what you hoped the result would be of forwarding this email to me? As a media critic, did you think I wouldn’t have a critique of Mr.Flaherty’s attempt at sensationalism and fear-mongering?

He must have thought she would learn something.

The
Springfield Patch
had another take: They said it was the “craziest thing I have ever seen on national TV news.”
⁴

In Chicago, a columnist said much the same thing the year before. As noted in the last chapter:
Chicago Tribune
columnist Mary Schmich revealed to readers in June 2011 that the
Tribune
and other media refused to report the race of the flash mob
participants. She confessed that they were indeed young black men, but then towing the line explained that it didn’t matter their race and mentioning the fact only reflects poorly on the good black kids.
⁵

Now you know.

Memorial Day. Juneteenth. July 4th. Riots flow like good,
sweet Milwaukee beer and brats.

“B
ig Mike” Hagler does not want to hear any more excuses for race riots at the Wisconsin State Fair. Or for fights and gunfire at the Juneteenth celebration in downtown Milwaukee. And he has a simple solution for the hundreds of black people who terrorized the Mayfair Mall: Knock it off!

“Every time there is an event going on, people want to pull out guns and go crazy,” said Mike Hagler. “Everything is getting cancelled: State fairs. Summerfest.” He continues:

All people want to do is fight. Y’all acting like animals. And it is crazy to say it is our own people acting that way.

It’s crazy when you go to an event and there be a majority white people there. As soon as black people come around that get to moving out of the way. They already know what is going to happen.

It’s like when you want to go to Juneteenth. I ain’t going to go to Juneteenth because people already know what is going to happen. People are going to be shooting and fighting.

Big Mike has lots of videos calling out black mob violence in Milwaukee. And Big Mike is still a teenager.

It cannot be as bad as he thinks right?

In New York, the locals talk about the best place to get a bagel. In San Francisco, it’s the Italian restaurants.

In Milwaukee, the discussion often turns to race riots: Which one was the worst? Was it the spontaneous violence of the State Fair of 2011, where hundreds of black people beat and terrorized the crowds in and out of the fairgrounds? Or was it the annual rolling race riot and black celebration known as Juneteenth? If so, what year? Violence is a regular feature of this annual downtown party. A lot of it has been caught on video and is available on YouTube.

Others hold out for the Fourth of July. For at least three years, groups of hundreds of black people have done all sorts of bad things, requiring mounted police, helicopters, and paddy wagons to bring it under control.

And let’s not forget the random acts of racial violence in buses, on street corners, at shopping centers, and in other public places that are so popular on YouTube. Hadn’t heard about that? Neither had I. We both need to get out more.

Let’s start with the July 4, 2011.

It started out like a flash rob that could have been in Philadelphia or Chicago or any of the dozens of other places around the country where black people meet at, rush in, and rob a store.
Fifty to a hundred black people rushed into a BP store after the fireworks. They looted it and ran off. But then this crew took it to a new level. They headed to a nearby park, where ten to twenty local white kids were enjoying a Fourth of July firework gathering.

Milwaukee Police Chief Flynn described what happened next as “fights,” which is a curious way to describe a large group of black kids beating up a small group of white kids. How about
race riot
? Though some reporters blanche at that term unless the perpetrators issue a press release stating their racial intentions. Perhaps some of the victims tried to defend themselves, but that is not clear either.

Police came. The mob ran away. Police refused to take a report or investigate the riot. Or show any curiosity in the convenience store videotape—that night anyway. The next day, victims started calling police wanting to know the status of their investigation. The police on duty knew nothing about it. No one had even filed a report.

They called reporters and things started to happen.

Soon the police chief and Mayor Barrett held a press conference. The chief tried to downplay the racial angle. Over the weekend, said the chief, the city had victims of crime that were black and white and Asian, so that proved that “crime was colorblind,” and he did not appreciate that some people on blogs and talk radio were trying to “sensationalize” it.
¹

At least there was not much danger of that from the initial coverage by the local daily paper. (This is almost word for word what Emily Guendelsberger, the liberal Philadelphia reporter, said after a black mob beat her up. And what Mayor Nutter said before reality forced him to open his eyes, if only temporarily.)

The level of violence finally forced the local paper to do what the local police would not: Talk to the victims.

Shaina Perry remembers the punch to her face, blood streaming from a cut over her eye, her backpack with her asthma inhaler, debit card, and cell phone stolen, and then the laughter.

They just said “Oh, white girl bleeds a lot,” said Perry, 22, who was attacked at Kilbourn Reservoir Park over the Fourth of July weekend.
²

The next day, more and more victims of this racial violence came forward, describing the attacks, the laughing, the beating, the weapons. “They were just having a good time,” said one of the victims of the attackers, referring to the laughing and joking during the violence. Another victim said, “I heard laughing as they were beating everybody up. They were eating chips like it was a picnic.” Sound familiar?
³