Philly Answers Youth Flash Mobs With Curfew Enforcement

Not that it's the first city to enforce a youth curfew, and not that kids on a crime-spree is the only variety of moral panic offered as a rationale, but Philadelphia is cracking down through increased enforcement of a youth curfew law after children and teenagers attacked two people in the Center City district — attacks which, according to police, were coordinated via text messaging.

Comments

Flash Mobs Are Nerd News Now????

[Anonymous Coward]

And in this case, it wasn't really a flash mob at all, it was just a gang of hoodlums.

This story doesn't seem relevant to this site at all to me.

Re:Flash Mobs Are Nerd News Now????

[PCM2]

But its time to call it like it is folks, and admit there is a reason why even though blacks have only 10% of the population they are more than 30% of the jail pop and it AIN'T racism. it is because you have this huge "thug life baby, thug life 4ever!" culture coupled with ZERO shame for having a half a dozen kids and not even knowing who the father is or having a male even involved in the child's life.

I'm not going to "call it" like any of this.

For one thing, who are the biggest consumers of rap music? White kids. That is a fact: Whites buy more rap music than anybody else, including the "thug life 4ever" music you describe. It only makes sense, because whites are the majority.

But white appetite for gangsta rap music is significant, because various black leaders over the years, including (just for example) Chuck D of the rap group Public Enemy, have criticized gangsta rap as a fabrication created by the (white-owned) record labels to pander to white prejudices and bigotry. Gangsta rap music perpetuates the same kind of stereotypes first put forth by the "blacksploitation" movies of the 1970s: Black man as thug, black man as criminal, black man as sexual predator. Those movies were made by whites and white audiences ate them up.

And those stereotypes didn't come out of nowhere. They are essentially the same stereotypes that were created as a way to reinforce the institution of slavery: Don't trust the Negro. He has no intelligence, only criminality. His only interest is to steal whatever he can (which is hilarious, considering black slaves were systematically deprived every possible material possession, up to and including their own bodies). He covets white women, don't let your women near him. If you see a Negro walking unaccompanied, call the police. And so on.

To your second point, about black families not having father figures, guess what? This is America. I grew up in the white suburbs in California, and from the 1970s onward, divorce was positively endemic in that community. I barely knew anybody who grew up in a two-parent household. Judges tended to award custody to mothers, and many fathers (mine, for example) were more than happy with that situation. Most white kids tended to see their fathers on weekends, or at least a couple times a month. But that might be true of "fatherless" black kids, too -- that doesn't make their fathers into "father figures." And as for abandoning their kids? My dad was a doctor, making a six-figure salary, and my mom eventually gave up trying to collect child support for her two kids.

So what's the difference? The difference is that when compared to blacks, whites are disproportionately born into the middle class or higher. They live in communities with better schools and better access to opportunities. They live in communities that don't foster an atmosphere of criminality, hostility, and disrespect -- but that's largely because even the most disadvantaged of their peers is probably doing pretty OK, while kids who grow up in poor neighborhoods are likely to have friends who are literally living on the streets by the time they are teenagers.

The difference is that, however much you might want to wave your hand and vanish it all into the cornfield, blacks still must contend with the legacy institutionalized racism. They are still born into communities that inherit the poverty that came from discrimination, segregation, intimidation, marginalization, disenfranchisement, and all the inequalities to which blacks were subjected just 50 years ago.

Seriously, you do realize that there are probably people reading /. who were born in an era where it was actually legal to deny someone a job because they were black, right? Or for that matter, to deny them the use of a public toilet for the same reason? That doesn't just disappear overnight.

A lot of the change has to come from within the black community, true. But what

Re:Uh...

[insertwackynamehere]

In Philadelphia, a flash mob is literally a mob of disenfranchised, angry youth rioting violently for a short amount of time. They run through stores destroying things, they beat people up, they carjack people for a block, hundreds of these kids (if not pushing 1000 sometimes). They are quite literally flash riots.

Re:Uh...

[insertwackynamehere]

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/171638/20110629/philadelphia-flash-mob-2011.htm As a source (but I'm from there and know this personally to be true as well)

Philly Flash Mob != Flash Mob

[The O Rly Factor]

As a Philadelphian, I can vouch that a flash mob in Philly is not the same thing as a flash mob that you see on AT&T advertising campaigns. While a flash mob may make you think of a bunch of people dancing in unison to some obscure pop culture reference in a large public area, a Philadelphia flash mob is a band of nearly feral minority teenagers whose parent wants to get their drink on and expels them for the night from their section 8 houses in North Philadelphia. They then flood down in droves to the Center City business district and Old City/South Street area, where they attack people at random.

I am sorry if that comes off as bitter and slightly racist. I was involved in one of these on South Street a few months ago...the fear you feel is absolutely indescribable when you realize that kids as young as 10 were raised in a way where they feel assaulting and robbing people at random is an acceptable Saturday night activity.

Re:Philly Flash Mob != Flash Mob

[insertwackynamehere]

I don't think it comes off as racist. Only on the internet, where racism has taken a meaning of pointing out problems within a certain community, would it be considered racism. Back in the real world, you pretty much described what a Philly flash mob is and likely what a good part of the reason is that they occur, specifically with poor black youth. It's not racist, it's a depressing reality: the majority of a flash mob (if not the entirety) is poor and black for a reason and not by chance. It's because of these issues that the black community in Philadelphia is dealing with: being raised by no one except some sociopath who was also raised by no one, to bash heads and snatch wallets.

The school system is falling apart meanwhile, we've got a string of terrible superintendents, teachers laid off, when I was in high school 5-9 years ago, there were schools known to be absolute hell holes (I went magnet, my neighborhood school would have probably led to my death) and even now some of these kids apparently were on their way to college but they decide to just participate in this violence? There is clearly something at work here, but that being said there is also no excuse for violence, none of the "white people deserve to get bashed" internet rage is appropriate, especially when most people posting it are white but super far removed from anything close to this because they live in some rich suburb in their parent's house and then act like white people in an urban environment are spoiled children for complaining about these sorts of things.

Re:Philly Flash Mob != Flash Mob

[couchslug]

There is a reason that doesn't happen much in States where it is a reasonable presumption that many potential targets are armed.

The LA riots happened in LA because there was no serious armed opposition except for a very few armed citizens. The reason they didn't spread to the South (excepting a few minor incidents) is that citizens are ready and eager to waste anyone threatening their safety.

"when you realize that kids as young as 10 were raised in a way where they feel assaulting and robbing people at random is an acceptable Saturday night activity."

I wasn't raised to think that gunning them down is an inappropriate response. A child soldier in Africa can kill you as dead as an adult militiaman/woman.

None of this is new. This guy fought back and survived:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernhard_Goetz

Problems...

[MaWeiTao]

We can talk about rights all we want, but the fact here is that what we're experiencing here is the criminal element stripping our rights away. Being unable to safely walk somewhere late at night constitutes a loss of freedom. The problem is that Americans are so used to this sort of garbage that they don't even see the problem. But I lived overseas where I could walk the streets at 3am without a care in the world. It wasn't that crime was non-existent but it didn't factor into normal routine. Sketchy neighborhoods were rare.

But the problem here is that American law enforcement is reactive, not proactive. The approach taken to crime is similar to how oppressive regimes keep sectarian conflict in check: oppression. I don't mean that Americans practice anything nearly that severe. What I mean is that they address problems with aggressive tactics; increased police presence, more arrests, etc. That only addresses the symptoms and once they're gone the problems return. And making matters worse is that this approach dehumanizes police offices, it turns them into this faceless force. They don't interact nearly enough with communities. They should patrol on foot, not in police cars.

However, the real problem are parents. Too many parents have abrogated their responsibilities. They don't care what their kids are doing, because if they did that kid wouldn't be out on the streets in the middle of the night. So, the responsibility ends up being foisted on the government. And what the government decides isn't always in the best interests of the citizens, especially when they're looking for quick results. Those quick results are effective over the current election cycle, but they never address the long term problems.

But the fact is the United States is suffering from serious cultural issues that perpetuates things like crime. Those need to be addressed properly, but honestly, I don't know see who could disagree with the benefits of enjoying safer streets, less vandalism, etc. But I suppose it's the tendency for Americans to want to stick it to the man, to the point of being irrational about it.

Re:Problems...

[brit74]

> But I lived overseas where I could walk the streets at 3am without a care in the world... But the fact is the United States is suffering from serious cultural issues that perpetuates things like crime.
I think it depends on where you are. As a tourist, you're probably travelling in safe places - in part because dangerous places aren't the places that get a lot of tourist traffic. (I know, for example, that the tourist areas of Mexico are generally safe, but Mexico has a lot more problems with crime, drug cartels, and 3-4x the homicide rate than the US.) Also, you might be perceiving the US as very dangerous thanks to news reports, while you're judging other countries based on personal experience.

Assaults (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_percap-crime-assaults-per-capita
# 1 South Africa: 12.0752 per 1,000 people
# 6 United States: 7.56923 per 1,000 people
# 7 New Zealand: 7.47881 per 1,000 people
# 8 United Kingdom: 7.45959 per 1,000 people
# 9 Canada: 7.11834 per 1,000 people
# 10 Australia: 7.02459 per 1,000 people
So, you're only 1%-8% more likely to be assaulted in the US than you are in New Zealand, the UK, Canada, and Australia.

Burglaries (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_bur_percap-crime-burglaries-per-capita
# 1 Australia: 21.7454 per 1,000 people
# 3 Denmark: 18.3299 per 1,000 people
# 4 Estonia: 17.4576 per 1,000 people
# 5 Finland: 16.7697 per 1,000 people
# 6 New Zealand: 16.2763 per 1,000 people
# 7 United Kingdom: 13.8321 per 1,000 people
# 8 Poland: 9.46071 per 1,000 people
# 9 Canada: 8.94425 per 1,000 people
# 17 United States: 7.09996 per 1,000 people
You're quite a bit less likely to have a burglary in the US than you are in Australia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, New Zealand, the UK, Poland, or Canada.

Total crimes (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_percap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita
# 2 New Zealand: 105.881 per 1,000 people
# 3 Finland: 101.526 per 1,000 people
# 4 Denmark: 92.8277 per 1,000 people
# 6 United Kingdom: 85.5517 per 1,000 people
# 8 United States: 80.0645 per 1,000 people
# 9 Netherlands: 79.5779 per 1,000 people
# 11 Germany: 75.9996 per 1,000 people
# 12 Canada: 75.4921 per 1,000 people
# 13 Norway: 71.8639 per 1,000 people
The US ranks in the same ballpark as these other countries when it comes to total crimes per capita.

Car thefts (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_car_the_percap-crime-car-thefts-per-capita
# 1 Australia: 6.92354 per 1,000 people
# 2 Denmark: 5.92839 per 1,000 people
# 3 United Kingdom: 5.6054 per 1,000 people
# 4 New Zealand: 5.45031 per 1,000 people
# 5 Norway: 5.08143 per 1,000 people
# 6 France: 4.9713 per 1,000 people
# 7 Canada: 4.88547 per 1,000 people
# 8 Italy: 4.19755 per 1,000 people
# 9 United States: 3.8795 per 1,000 people
Car theft is quite a bit less common in the US than these other developed countries.

Rapes (per capita) http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita
# 3 Australia: 0.777999 per 1,000 people
# 5 Canada: 0.733089 per 1,000 people
# 9 United States: 0.301318 per 1,000 people
# 10 Iceland: 0.246009 per 1,000 people
# 12 New

it's about class, not race

[circletimessquare]

the same things happen in other parts to the world, and it's not black kids doing it, it's poor kids doing it

the POVERTY is the issue, not the race

it's just revealing to me to see the right constantly falling into race based thinking, rather than class based thinking

it reveals the right doesn't understand the problems you create when you push social policies that create a large poor under class, rather than policies that support the growth of the middle class

the right pushes policies that makes people poor, and then they see poor people doing things because of their lame policies

and yet, they don't think "poor kids did this and that", they think "black kids did this and that"

very revealing

Re:it's about class, not race

[circletimessquare]

if i recall correctly, african americans were brought here as slaves, and have been excluded from fair economic participation, on a horrible scale, just up to 50 years ago, not to mention lingering prejudice, like yours. and i think you want to deny that history leaves lasting effects

you want to see race as the cause, when history, economics and class are clearly the cause. if you were intelligent, you would see this

it is always the dumbest losers who are racists. so, in one regard, i kind of agree with racist eugenics principles: improve the gene pool, but not by killing people based on skin color or religion, but instead kill people based on their support for racist policies. because there is no better way to identify a low iq person than to hear someone say something racist

in other words: if you kill all the racists, in any society in the world, the iq of society jumps massively

so what do you think about that modest proposal to improve the gene pool, scumbag?

(snicker)