(Editor's note: Colin Flaherty has done more reporting than any other journalist on what appears to be a nationwide trend of skyrocketing black-on-white crime, violence and abuse. WND features these reports to counterbalance the virtual blackout by the rest of the media due to their concerns that reporting such incidents would be inflammatory or even racist. WND considers it racist not to report racial abuse solely because of the skin color of the perpetrators or victims.) Videos linked or embedded may contain foul language and violence.
Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is not waiting around for the New York Times to figure out if the Knockout Game is an urban legend. Not anymore.
That did not work out too well last time.
"Three years ago Philadelphia was on the cusp of a two-year bout with dozens of episodes of what the press was calling flash mobs of unruly teens, but what lots of other people recognized as black mob violence," said Taleeb Starkes, author of the "Uncivil War: Confronting the Subculture Within the African-American Community." "It was an exact repeat of what happened this week when Nutter promised he was not going to tolerate the Knockout Game. The mayor had assembled a full cast of characters including the district attorney and the police chief to promise they were not going to put up with this flash mob nonsense."
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Back then, the mayor declared that an outbreak of racial violence was "nothing much" and really the fault of bad reporting. Nutter told The New York Times the violence had "no racial component." The Times was one of the only outlets to even consider the question. Even if only to dismiss it.
Then came flood of YouTube videos, showing thousands of black people roaming the streets of Philadelphia, with violence and injury following at pizza shops, hotels, bars, tourist spots. The largest attacks took place on South Street: Pulling people out of cars and beating them.
"Local network affiliates were also all over it with video," said Willie Shields, a Philadelphia area radio talk show host. "But no one on the air had the nerve to say what the videos screamed: All the attackers and looters were black."
Many of these stories are documented in "White Girl Bleed A Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How the Media Ignore It."
Then came the testimonials from other victims.
Police had claimed that none of the injuries imposed by the mob was serious. Turns out they had not even checked. Ronnie Polaneczky, columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, checked. She found John, a maintenance mechanic, who "suffered severe brain injury and facial fractures and is sitting in a hospital as I write this, two weeks after he was pulled from a bike and beaten."
That same weekend that Philadelphia urban pioneers ran into "nothing much" and ended up in the hospital with serious injuries, more than 40 black people in a Philly suburb descended on a Sears and ransacked it in broad daylight.
Afterwards, the police chief said he feared for the safety – of the rioters.
A few days later, news anchors on the local Fox affiliate weighed in. A black TV anchor worried about the "destructive tone" of the comments from people who observed that all the people in these riots were black.
She said it was "sad" that people did not recognize the true nature of the violence: Young people were to blame. Not black people.
Their guest, a black radio talk-show host, said the riots were not racial. But if they were, it was understandable because the state legislature cut money for job training and increased money for prisons. He said it was not right to blame everyone in a group for the acts of a few bad people in that group.
"When African American commits a crime, society is looking to define race. When Lochner shot (Congresswoman) Giffords, nobody said 'what is wrong with white men?' This isn't a black or white issue: they need things to do."
Then they blamed young people some more. It was not about race. Despite overwhelming video evidence, despite the fact that everyone arrested was black, despite every bit of evidence to the contrary, this reporter wanted to know: Who we were going to believe: Her? Or our own eyes.
Why couldn't we see that?
One month later, Nutter blew all the deniers out of the water.
After years of alternately denying and explaining dozens of attacks, Nutter took to the pulpit of a black church – where he grew up – to break the silence and mention the "R" word: Race. In a Sunday speech in July of 2011, the mayor admitted his city had a problem with violent black people:
"You have damaged your own race."
"Take those G---darn hoodies down, especially in the summer," Mr. Nutter, the city's second black mayor, said in an angry lecture aimed at black teens. "Pull your pants up and buy a belt 'cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt.
"If you walk into somebody's office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won't hire you? They don't hire you 'cause you look like you're crazy," the mayor said.
This, pre-Trayvon. Before members of the Congressional Black Caucus started wearing hoodies on the floor of the House of Representatives to demonstrate racial solidarity with their fallen comrade.
The head of Philadelphia's chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, J. Whyatt Mondesire, said it "took courage" for Nutter to deliver the message. "These are majority African-American youths and they need to be called on it," Mondesire said.
The black web site TheGrio.com said Nutter just seemed so disgusted that he just had to, as he put it, talk about things black people "think but won't say."
After years of joining with the mayor in ignoring organized racial violence, the Philadelphia Inquirer congratulated the mayor for "moving quickly against mayhem mobs."
Soon after, the mayor decided he would solve at least part of the problem himself. At least for a little while: He took a few dozen of the unruly youths to a bowling alley. "Where they got into a fight and one even got stabbed," said Starkes.
Flash forward two years to today: Racial violence in Philadelphia never really went away. It just took a different form. The latest being several well publicized versions of the Knockout Game. Including a first: One of the groups involved in the latest round of Knockout Games is white.
This time, local media is at least questioning whether these attacks are racial in nature. Most notably, the Philadelphia Inquirer, which is still not convinced the Knockout Game is real.
The Inquirer is joining the New York Times, CNN, the Los Angeles Times and other news outlets around the country claiming the Knockout Game may be a fad. Or a myth.
The last time Nutter tried to wait out a bout of racial violence, he was hammered in the press and talk radio and in the comments section of the local newspapers almost daily for two years before he got religion.
This time he is out front. The Inquirer reports: "First and foremost, this is disgusting and inexcusable behavior," Nutter said at an evening news conference at city hall this week. "And it's not a game. You can seriously injure, possibly even kill, someone with this kind of activity."
Even Al Sharpton joined in. "This behavior is racist, period," Sharpton wrote in the Huffington Post. "And we will not tolerate it."
Not even from the New York Times? The Philadelphia Inquirer? CNN? Or the Los Angeles Times, which says WND news stories and "White Girl Bleed a Lot" are "a favorite of conservative voices who stoke racial animus for fun and ratings?"
See a trailer for "White Girl Bleed a Lot":