Mighty Salon and little old me

When I heard Salon was planning a major take down of my book, "White Girl Bleed a Lot: The Return of Racial Violence and how the Media Ignore It," I was not worried.

That is because there is nothing to take down. The book has no grand theories about causes or solutions. Neither does it apologize for noticing hundreds of cases of racial violence and mayhem in more than 70 cities over the last three years.

Thomas Sowell said until he read the book, he had no idea how bad the problem of racial violence was. High praise indeed.

I've been writing about race for a while, including an investigative article that got a black man out of prison after I showed he was unjustly convicted of trying to kill his white girl friend.

NPR, the Los Angeles Times, San Diego Union-Tribune and Court TV did stories on that, showing how I made it happen. It was a big deal.

Enter Salon and its review of "White Girl Bleed a Lot." The first part of the review was lots of mumbo jumbo about "racist bats--t" and how I wrote the book "solely to scare white people."

When Salon ran out of names to call me, the liberal website said I did not have my facts right. Now them is some fightin' words. So let's look at the Big Take Down:

Exhibit 1: The Minneapolis Pedal Pub. Last year, a group of 20-40 black people attacked a weird bicycle-like contraption that carries alcoholic drinks.

Salon broke out the big guns:

"Flaherty says 'a group of black people attacked a mobile alcoholic beverage cart in Minneapolis,' but there's no such thing as 'mobile alcoholic beverage carts' in Minneapolis. The thing attacked was a bunch of people on one of those stupid group bicycles with a beer keg."

That's it? A crowd of black people terrorize a group of people out for a good time on some crazy thing I had never heard of – but describe correctly nonetheless – and all Salon can wrongly say is that somehow I violated its guidelines for describing goofy alcoholic beverage carts?

Here's a picture: You decide.

Exhibit 2:

I also write about 20 black people who beat up a white woman at a park:

"He also seems to intentionally elide the stated motive for the attack, which wasn't anti-white animus but a missing pair of sunglasses."

Note the word "seems" – a word I never use. Something happened and I confirmed it. Or I did not write it. There is no seems.

I do not say the attack was anti-white. I describe the attackers as a mob of black people as part of a pattern of dozens of such attacks in Minneapolis. I don't do the mob minding-reading trick, so I do not speak to motivation. But I do keep my eyes open and watch what happens. It is called reporting.

Exhibit 3: Salon did not like my estimate of nearly 1,000 black people on the streets of Minneapolis last September, doing all sorts of violence, theft and destruction. All on YouTube.

Here is what is important: I reported 1,000 black people were involved in racial violence. Minneapolis police said race had nothing to do with this.

Here's the video: You decide.

A few months ago I wrote for WND about how the host of a Minneapolis radio show told his listeners he had a hard time believing all these stories about racial violence in the Twin Cities.

One torrent of listener calls later, he begged for mercy.

The readers reacted to the Salon article in a similar fashion.

Exhibit 4: Esteban Moberley said: "I haven't read the book, nor do I have any desire to. Right-wing screed books are a dime a dozen.

"However, I live in Champaign, Illinois – home of the University of Illinois. For the past several years, we have had an onslaught of groups of young black men assaulting white men at random. They ambushed and beat students on the campus and people in their own yards. These victims were not typically robbed, just ambushed and beaten senseless.

"They beat up our weatherman."

Then Moberley gave the links – just like I do in my book. I had not heard about these crimes. They will get their own chapter in the fifth edition. Let's call it "Revenge of the Weatherman."

Guess the poet was right: You don't really need one, do you?

Others posted their own personal experiences with racial violence. Some apologized for noticing the race of their attackers.

Salon readers then took it to another level. After the denial, then excuses, several readers said we deserved more racial violence.

One reader conceded there was an "element of truth there." But, "if they don't want hordes of angry poor people rising up to slay them, perhaps they should stop promoting such unfair economic policies?"

Another said:

"Obviously 50 years of food stamps and integrated schools hasn't miraculously fixed the psychic damage black people incurred through hundreds of years where white people treated them worse than dogs, damage that reverberates through the generations as soundly as white Americans' privilege continues to through their bloodlines."

My favorite was the poster who knew the real reason for the epidemic of racial violence was because a "country of racist thugs, initially stealing land from natives and other countries by whatever lethal means required, then gaining economic dominance over the rest of the world using any means necessary, no matter how brutal. Internally, racism was used to subjugate non-whites, and provided an effective 'affirmative action' program for the ruling whites, especially the hillbillies and rednecks."

Other reviewers have pointed out that I do not get into the causes or solutions. But then again, they read the book.