A police spokesman said on Monday that 192 people were being charged in the shootout among rival motorcycle gangs at a busy shopping plaza in the Central Texas city of Waco on Sunday that left at least nine bikers dead and 18 others wounded.Charlie Pierce mocks the usual gang of tut-tutters, whom he expects to be conspicuously silent about this:
Law enforcement officials said the gun battle was primarily between the Bandidos and Cossacks gangs, a continuation of a long-running feud between the two groups, though members of the Scimitars and two other gangs were also involved....
The gunfire erupted about 12:15 p.m. on Sunday outside the restaurant, and the fight spilled into the parking lot, initially involving just fists and feet, but escalating quickly to chains, knives, clubs and firearms....
“There were multiple people on the scene firing weapons at each other,” Sergeant Swanton said. “They then turned on our officers. Our officers returned gunfire, wounding and possibly killing several.”
I am sure that, when the dust settles, and the 200-odd (!) people who were arrested get arraigned, we will hear a great deal from the usual suspects about the cultural pathologies inherent in white society that are at the root of episodes like this one. David Brooks will notice that white people -- many of whom wear ponytails and mullets -- also tend to fk without his approval, and Ross Cardinal Douthat will wonder whether we'd even have motorcycle gangs if Pius XII were still alive. Earnest pundits on television will agree that we must discover immediately how many of the assembled grew up in two-parent homes.But I think Brooks and Douthat really might get on their high horses about this, even given the low melanin levels of the participants. In their crowd, it's very common these days to say that, yes, black people have a defective culture, but it's all liberals' fault, and now poorer whites are behaving badly as well, for the same reasons. Here's Douthat last year:
... I do think that if you’re looking for a discussion of the “culture of poverty” that isn’t particularly racialized and that’s pretty intently focused on social problems in the white (and Hispanic) working class as well as in African-American communities, you can find it quite easily among right-of-center policy thinkers, in the pages and pixels of conservative journals and magazines, and (occasionally, if too-infrequently) in the rhetoric of conservative politicians as well.The Charles Murray argument appeared in a 2012 book titled Coming Apart, which Brooks gave a rave review:
... it’s at least noteworthy a generation [after The Bell Curve], the name “Charles Murray” is mainly associated with a controversial argument about cultural collapse in downscale white America, and the most recent cover story on poverty, culture and welfare in a political magazine was Kevin Williamson’s grim essay on Appalachia in National Review.
’ll be shocked if there’s another book this year as important as Charles Murray’s “Coming Apart.” I’ll be shocked if there’s another book that so compellingly describes the most important trends in American society.In the case of Waco, it wouldn't surprise me to see Brooks and Douthat argue, following Murray, that white social pathology stems from the fact that rich people who've mastered the manly and Christian art of self-control no longer live on the hill just overlooking their moral inferiors, but now live way out there, where their profound moral influence can't be felt. They may also blame the sixties -- hey, the Cossacks were founded in 1969! -- and to ignore the fact that America has been worried about biker gang violence since at least the 1953 film The Wild One, which traces its origins, in part, to news reports of a California biker riot that took place in 1947.
... there are vast behavioral gaps between the educated upper tribe (20 percent of the country) and the lower tribe (30 percent of the country). This is where Murray is at his best, and he’s mostly using data on white Americans, so the effects of race and other complicating factors don’t come into play.
Brooks and Douthat won't care. They'll blame the Summer of Love and the Grateful Dead for what happened in Waco. They'll say rich liberal elitists should have prevented a Texas bar fight. Moral scolders gotta scold.
Meanhile, what's our plan for the aftermath in Waco? I assume the everyone who matches the biker profile -- white, male, beer gut -- will now be stopped and frisked by the cops, based on "reasonable suspicion." Right?
12 comments:
Where were the good bikers with guns?
Oh yeah, shooting at other “good” bikers with guns!
And never mind Bobo and Pope Douthat, I’m sure (DUMB)FUX “news” will be chock full of gang violence today!
You know, the BAD gang violence – which, of course, involves Nigrah yute’s.
People who match the "biker profile" are already watched by the cops and federal agents. Biker gangs are more riddled with undercover cops and feds than minority street gangs, or even white militia groups.
The reasons are obvious, outlaw biker gangs have along history of violence, drug dealing, arms running, prostitution, and more. The DEA and ATF especially are really after biker gangs. Agents who've infiltrated them have to go into protection and hiding for the rest of their life, they actively kill feds and cops.
What's unusual about this isn't that biker gangs were violent, that the cops were stalking them, or that the cops shot them dead. What's unusual is the scale of the brawl that broke out.
Wearing biker jackets showing your colors is a sure fire way to have the cops investigate your ass.
My point was that cops define the "gangbanger profile" as any black male between the ages of 12 and what -- 70? Why isn't the "biker profile" just as broad?
@Steve M.
Your remark isn't really accurate, and you're deliberately keeping it that way to make a false statement. Nobody is going to mistake a black man in a suit with a briefcase for a blood. Just as nobody is going to mistake a white man in a suit for a Hells Angel.
It's also about who's active where you are. I live in DC, we have gang problems. Of course, those gangs are almost entirely black or latino in nature. There's no point in looking out for white gang bangers or white bikers in DC proper because it's a non issue.
For what it's worth though, in areas where biker gangs are a problem innocent people get rounded up all the time. Not all biker gangs are criminal, but that won't mean shit to a cop who pulls you over in a biker jacket. It's a giant "no shit sherlock" that wearing leathers with colors and riding a bike is a great way to have problems with the police.
So there is a broad biker profile, bikers are targeted. Furthermore, your claim about the profile of a gang banger is flat out made up.
Lots of cops are racist and they fuck with black people because of that. Poverty is common in minority communities which means they are prime targets for monetary extraction to keep tax rates down and fund municipal services. This isn't "profiling", this is fucking with people because you know you can get away with it. Which is exactly what has been going on in this nation for decades.
Nobody is going to mistake a black man in a suit with a briefcase for a blood.
Really? Why don't you ask some suit-wearing black men if they've ever been hassled by cops while dressed that way.
@Steve M.
You're twisting things again to engage in falsehoods.
Cops will hassle people dressed in a suit, that does not mean they are accusing them of being bloods!
I got hassled by the cops a block from my apartment complex the other night. That does not mean the cops thought I was a biker!
But keep twisting if you want.
Whatever. I don't think you're moving the goalposts exactly -- I think yours just aren't anywhere near mine.
@Steve M.
I don't think we actually disagree on the fundamentals. Which are that police violence and harassment of minorities is much worse than harassment of whites.
Where we break is that I'm willing to admit that white militia groups, biker gangs, and other types are targeted by local and federal law enforcement. And that this does lead to profiling in areas where those groups contribute the majority of the violence. Where you seem to want to handwave all of this away and say it doesn't happen because it's conflicting with your narrative, that or you never bothered to look into it because it's not a concern of yours.
As I think you're a smart person, I'm more willing to chalk this up to deliberate obfuscation rather than lack of information.
What I'm saying is that pursuit of black gang members is done with a much, much wider net that pursuit of white biker gangs/militias/etc. Seems self-evident to me.
I lived in Fort Worth during the 70's and 80s When the Bandidos were building their brutal reputation the Coke trade along Interstate 35. Geese is correct about state and local law enforcement being ALL over their shit. At least in Texas. Biker gangs are big there. It's a wild west cowboy thing. Bad-assery takes a different form up here in the NE. The new aggravating danger factors in Texas I think, are the open carry movement, Hyper gun culture and neo-racism emerging. It's a perfect storm of their culture's own making. Easy to predict. It's one of the reasons I moved out many years ago.
To address the original point of the post, Douthat and Brooks and the Fox news crew don't have to address this issue from a racial aspect at all. Just like they never talk about the old drunk white guy from Kalamazoo waving his AR-whatever semi auto rifle at the police with no conequences. It doesn't fit the narrative. It doesn't exist to them as an issue from this post's lens.
Actually, bikers do tend to be stereotyped by cops based on their appearance. I used to ride a motorcycle and found that cops tended to pull over people wearing typical "biker gang" clothing whenever they could get some pretext to do so, on suspicion that said biker was probably up to something no good. A switch to a heavy duty ballistic nylon riding pant and jacket that screamed "money" solved that though, since I don't otherwise fit the biker stereotype.
But anyhow, they say a well armed society is a polite society, so I know what tack Douchbag and friends are gonna take. I'm sure this gun fight was very polite. And now nine people are now extra-polite, permanently, so how much more polite can you get for a well armed society? Of course, they're also *dead*, but let's not quibble pesky little details like that....
- Badtux the Snarking Penguin
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