[](/sites/default/files/uploads/2013/12/art24k-1-web.jpg)What do you think the face of racism looks like? The snarling, ugly, crooked teeth, hunched back, and stove-pipe hat of a Simon Legree?
Come on, man. This is 2013.
The face of racism today is pretty. Polished. Smooth talking. Cloying. It looks like the face to the left.
This is the Councilwoman-elect Laurie Cumbo, soon to represent the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn. The same place in the news for black-on-Jewish violence. Most recently taking the form of what people are calling the Knockout Game.
Call it what you will, in Crown Heights it features black people attacking Jewish people. Then laughing. And if there is a bit of robbery involved, that’s all good too.
The solons at the New York Times may be trying to figure out if the Knockout Game is real or a figment of this correspondent’s imagination. But Jewish people in Crown Heights are way past that: They know they are under constant threat of black mob violence. Whatever we are calling it this year.
That is nothing new for this neighborhood: I documented black on Jewish violence in Crown Heights and other areas in White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to American and How the Media Ignore It. (The Amazon #1 Best Selling Civil Rights Book in America, thank you very much!)
And if you want to go back to 1991, I was happy to see a recent article where the author pointed out the Crown Heights riots of that year so ably abetted by Al Sharpton were not “fights.” They were attacks. And city leaders allowed them to continue for three days.
The soon-to-be honorable Cumbo is also way past any doubt whether blacks are systematically beating and terrorizing Jewish people in Crown Heights. “As an African American woman, this is challenging, because I recognize that it is Black children and not Jewish children that are playing the ‘Knock Out Game’,” she said on her Facebook page – with approving comments from Eliot Spitzer, no less.
Cumbo is also way past explaining racial violence. That’s old news as well. Though she does go through the motions with a few half-hearted stabs at this institution failing that, this leader not talking about that.
Everyone knows that.
Cumbo is now in full reparations mode. Thanks to DNAinfo.com, we learned from the soon-to-be councilwoman how:
“Many African American/Caribbean residents expressed a genuine concern that as the Jewish community continues to grow, they would be pushed out by their Jewish landlords or by Jewish families looking to purchase homes,” Cumbo wrote in the 1,200-word letter, which was emailed to supporters and posted on her Facebook page.
“I respect and appreciate the Jewish community’s family values and unity that has led to strong political, economic and cultural gains. While I personally regard this level of tenacity, I also recognize that for others, the accomplishments of the Jewish community triggers feelings of resentment, and a sense that Jewish success is not also their success.”
She added that these sentiments among black Crown Heights residents “offer possible insight as to how young African American/Caribbean teens could conceivably commit a ‘hate crime’ against a community that they know very little about.”
Jewish success not their success?
This is the language of extortion. Blackmail. All we need is one final admission that she and her constituents don’t want it all, just enough to get their “beaks wet.” Toss in a few references to Al Sharpton’s diamond merchants and that completes the circle.
And you thought the face of racism and extortion was Simon Legree threatening to whip you if you did not hand over a fistful of silver dollars.
Come on, man.
Cumbo continues with lots of talk about history, and mutual understanding and how are we going to stop the violence and increase understanding and, my second-favorite: Why do we just care about it when it happens to Jews, and ignore black-on-black violence?
Only surpassed by these additional musings to her Facebook postings, where she identifies the real victims of the Crown Heights beat downs: Black people.
The recent November 26th article published in The Jewish Week, paints African American teens in a dangerous light, and could cause the vast majority of innocent young people of color to be seen as criminals in the Crown Heights community as a result of the actions of a dangerous small minority.
A classic script-flipping move: Please tell me you noticed how all of a sudden the victims are the predators. And the predators, victims.
And somehow, on some level, Jews are responsible for the violence against them. If not, why offer to meet to resolve the differences? When in fact the only real disagreement is whether black people should systematically and spontaneously – but not randomly – assault Jews in Brooklyn.
Now that Cumbo has re-established the natural order of life in Crown Heights, all that is left is a meeting or two to set the terms of surrender. And the amount of reparations.
It won’t take long.
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Don’t miss Jamie Glazov’s video interview with Colin Flaherty about “White Girl Bleed A Lot”:
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