They said they were going to run it. We went through several edits. They scheduled it.
Then pulled it. Come to think of it, that is not canceling. That is censoring. See you at banned book week.
Here it is… i left in the original editing comments from the Post … my favorite one: Talking about Black Beach Week in Miami Beach: IS THAT ACCURATE?
Come on, man!
Enjoy the forbidden fruit:
If It Can Happen in Denver ….
by Colin Flaherty
When I told my friends I was working on a magazine article, then book, about a tsunami of racial violence in America over the last two years, they all said, “I haven’t heard about that.”
When writer and attorney John Bennett told me Denver was the site of one of the most organized and violent and sustained examples of racial violence in the country, I told him: “I haven’t heard about that.”
People in Denver remember the story. Even if the rest of us do not: Two years ago, Denver police arrested 35 black men for systematically beating white and Latino men over a period of four months. Some people were hurt bad.
Denver may have been ahead of the racial violence curved, but it is far from alone.
In hundreds of episodes in more than 50 cities over the last two years, groups of black people are roaming the streets of America — assaulting, intimidating, stalking, threatening, vandalizing, stealing, shooting, stabbing, even raping and killing.
Unlike the Denver INCIDENT? , local media WHERE? and public officials WHERE? are often silent.
Crime is color blind, says a Milwaukee police chief. Race is not important and if you notice, you are a racist, a Chicago newspaper editor says. IS THAT A DIRECT QUOTE? CAN YOU MAKE IT ONE? OR NAME THE EDITOR… ?
That denies the obvious: America is the most race conscious society in the world.
We learn that every day from black caucuses, black teachers, black unions, black ministers, black colleges, black high schools, black music, black moguls, black hair business owners, black public employees, black art, black names, black poets, black inventors, black soldiers.
Everything except black violent crime. That is taboo.
Except for those who would try and deny it. Or excuse it.
Denver community activist Alvertis Simmons said this kind of violence happens in the black community all the time. “But when they victimize White people, then it’s an issue and that is wrong,” she told the Post. THE DENVER POST? WHEN? WE CAN’T FIND IT IN OUR ARCHIVES.
Simmons was presaging remarks from Congressman Bobby Rush of Chicago and black elected leaders all over the country who shrugged off the assaults as an everyday fact of life in black neighborhoods. WHEN WERE THOSE REMARKS?
But Denver is not New York or Chicago or Philadelphia, where racial tensions and violence are more well known. And more wide spread.
The message of Denver is that if it can happen here, it can happen anywhere. And it did.
In WHERE IN IOWA? Iowa, last year, following a racial disturbance at the state fair, one police report called it “Beat Whitey Night.”
Peoria? Absolutely: Right in the middle of Middle America.
Milwaukee? Yes, on the Fourth of July, after looting a nearby convenience store, a crowd of nearly 100 blacks set upon a some white teens on a picnic. After beating one white woman, a black woman noted “Oh, White girl bleed a lot.”
At the Wisconsin state fair, just a few weeks later, hundreds of black people roamed the fairgrounds, targeting white people for violence. You didn’t hear about that?
Then you probably did not hear about Black Beach Week, held every year in Miami Beach over the Memorial Day Weekend. This year, 200,000 black people created a three day riot complete with shootings, killing, mountains of filth and everything in between IS THAT ACCURATE? — causing another kind of riot: An uprising to shut down this annual violent uprising.
The list of cities goes on and on.
Public officials, local media and even victims may be too squeamish to talk about the new race riots, but YouTube is not. Neither is talk radio.
So we learn in fits and starts and pieces and glimpses. Finally, we are connecting the dots. Which is good: The solutions cannot begin until the denial ends. But first we all need to hear about it.
