As the brutal “knockout” game sweeps across the U.S., one author isn’t surprised by the attacks or the media reaction.
Colin Flaherty, author of the book “White Girl Bleed A Lot: The Return of Racial Violence to America and How The Media Ignore It,” began chronicling the new wave of violence nearly a year ago — revealing disturbing racial motivations behind the attacks and a pattern of media denial.
“People are ready to hear about this,” Flaherty told The Daily Caller. “And the way I wrote this is without generalizations, without stereotypes, without apologies. I don’t pretend this is not a difficult topic, but it is also an important one.”
Many left-leaning commentators criticized his book as racist after its debut, and as the violent knockout game has attracted media attention a year later, they haven’t backed down: “[Colin Flaherty] probably has a Google alert set up for ‘black suspect,'” wrote Slate editorial assistant Emma Roller in a Nov. 25 article, calling the knockout game a “myth” spread by “knockout game truthers” such as conservative radio host Sean Hannity.
For his part, Flaherty warns that the most recent outbreak of random attacks adhere to an alarming pattern of racially motivated violence, which the media are reluctant to cover and sometimes dismiss outright.
“In this case, we have the tapes of Bigfoot,” Flaherty said. “There’s so much video evidence of the violence we’re talking about… The knockout game is just a subset of a much larger topic, which is black mob violence, which the media ignores, condones and denies.”
TheDC sat down with Flaherty to understand his perspective on the spread of the knockout game and its impact on American life.
TheDC: I wanted to talk to you about the knockout games, because they are starting to pick up some media attention. And I know in your book, ‘White Girl Bleed A Lot,’ you wrote about the phenomenon of racial violence very methodically and the media’s reluctance to acknowledge this. Can you give your perspective on the most recent spate of attacks and the media’s reactions?
FLAHERTY: The most recent attacks are just more of the same. Black mob violence, this time directed at Jews. At least in Brooklyn it started off that way — I have a big chapter in my book on black mob violence on Jews last summer. So this is all the hallmarks of the knockout game as I cover it, which is, A) The media strips out the central, organizing feature of the violence, which is the race, and then they try to minimize it, condone it, excuse it. So over the weekend, The New York Times has a story on the knockout games, and they wonder if it’s an urban legend. (RELATED: Knockout game first news trend The New York Times doesn’t believe)
“These things don’t even exist. Somebody’s just making them up!” There’s one thing about it, though: In this case, we have the tapes of Bigfoot. A lot of them. Like a thousand of them. There’s so much video evidence of the violence we’re talking about. See, I don’t just talk about the knockout games. But the knockout game is just a subset of a much larger topic, which is black mob violence, which the media ignores, condones and denies.
TheDC: Why isn’t there an outcry about this, if there’s this scale of violence hurting so many people? Why aren’t more people speaking out about it?
FLAHERTY: You know, sometimes the victims don’t even speak out about it. For example, the title of the book comes from an incident in Milwaukee, where 50 to 100 black people went into a grocery store on the Fourth of July on video, looted a bunch of groceries and candy, went to the local park, beat up a bunch of white people. That’s when [one of] the women looked down at the white girl and said, “White girl bleed a lot.”
They [the victims] went to the police station the next day and said, “Did you ever find the people who beat us up?”
The police said, “What are you talking about? We don’t even have a police report on that.” So they did do something on that, and they found the woman who was the subject of the violence, and she said she didn’t want to be divisive and talk about the racial nature of the crime.
… Down in New Haven, just a few months ago, a guy got beat up on a motorcycle, a little scooter, in downtown New Haven. He said, “I don’t want to get into it. It’s too divisive.” So I don’t know why there hasn’t been more outcry, and one of the reasons I said in the book is I don’t think enough people know about it.
TheDC: We published a piece at The Daily Caller about one girl who was attacked — she said the attackers just need more education.
FLAHERTY: Yeah, I know, I loved that. I loved that. That’s the only time — she’s an extreme example of a victim, but most of the victims — there’s a lot of it going on in D.C., by the way. A lot of it on the bike trails, and of course in the gay neighborhoods. And most of the people kind of say, “Well, they were black, but it had nothing to do with it.” (RELATED: Girl who got punched in the head gives lame liberal speech humanizing her attackers)
TheDC: What do you mean, the gay neighborhoods?
FLAHERTY: I have a whole chapter on it. Enormous. It’s black-mob-on-gay violence. You’ve got the perfect storm, right? You have perfect storm of gay victims who do not want anyone to know they are gay and hanging around bars, and you have the perfect storm of reporters who don’t want to report black-mob violence, and plus the other things is, the people involved would rather you you wouldn’t think about it at all.
TheDC: Have you noticed any condemnation of the knockout games? Al Sharpton spoke out against the knockout games. What’s your take on that?
FLAHERTY: I don’t really care what Al Sharpton condemns or approves of, but here’s what I really thought was important: He acknowledged it was racial violence. And that’s basically more than The Washington Post and The New York Times have done. So I appreciated that about it.
TheDC: Can you comment on the post-racial society we were supposed to have under President Barack Obama, our first African-American president? He commented on the Trayvon Martin case and yet has been quiet on the “black mob violence.”
FLAHERTY: We don’t live in a post-racial society. America today is the most race-conscious country in the world. So we live in a country of black caucuses, black churches, black universities, black TV, black radio, black newspapers, black professional groups — we live in a place where there are several different organizations, like the National Association of Black Journalists. Very race-conscious.
So when I see this stuff happening, like a thousand people rampaging down the streets in Philadelphia over and over and over, and I go to these same reporters who write the stories I was just telling you about, and I say, “That looks like an old-fashioned race riot.” And the people that were so race-conscious just a second ago look at me and say, “Colin, we’re colorblind.” So that’s why I wrote the book. I wrote the book for the deniers who are just freaked out by the whole topic of race.
TheDC: Is it because Americans are afraid of being called racists that they don’t address this?
FLAHERTY: You know what, I think that — absolutely yes. I think there’s a lot of reasons why they don’t. I don’t even do the “why” that much. I don’t do the causes or the solutions. I do that the “how.” I do violence, denial, violence, denial. Boom, boom, boom, boom, on and on. So if we get into the “why,” we’ll probably have to get a psychiatrist in here and get some of your buddies at The Washington Post on the couch.
TheDC: How do we break the cycle of violence and denial?
FLAHERTY: We’re doing it right now. We’re sitting here talking about it — I’m writing about it, you’re going to write about it, and we’re going to write about it without racism, without rancor, without apologies. I don’t know any other solution besides that…
Here’s the thing. Racial violence is an everyday fact of life in the big, Northeast cities. But also [in] places like Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland — it’s an everyday fact. San Francisco — it’s there as well. But this year, I’ve been writing about in the book, the small towns. What about Piore, Ill? Springfield, Mo? Greensboro in Mayberry Country? What about “beat whitey” day at the Iowa State Fair — three days of black mob violence, three days in a row, directed at white people.
They asked the spokesman, a uniformed officer, Laurie Lavorato, “Laurie, what’s up with all this black mob violence at the Iowa State Fair?”
And she said, “Yeah, it’s happening.” She got fired the next day for telling the truth about racial violence. Got fired in the Clint Eastwood sense… and sent her down to traffic division. And just six months ago, a dad was walking around in Des Moines, Iowa, and he got killed by a group of 20 black people. People tried to help him, they beat them up, took their phones, threw them in the river… So I’m not saying Des Moines is any better or worse, but if it’s happening in Des Moines, what do you think the rest of the country is like?
I see two conflicting things happening. On one end, we have people like you and me, sitting here talking about it, telling the truth about it — I don’t think this can survive people telling the truth about it. But on the other end, we have Critical Race Theory that says white racism is everywhere and white racism is permanent. That’s being taught in grade schools, high schools, colleges — you turn on the cable networks, [and] it’s very popular. Of course it’s popular with the academics. And so you get this enormous amount of resentment, black resentment, black hostility, that’s expressed in violence. I don’t know who’s going to win — the truth or the anger and resentment. I guess we’re still in the first round of that. (BEDFORD: Soledad O’Brien is an idiot)
TheDC: Do you have any last thoughts or comments you would like to add?
FLAHERTY: Only that black mob violence is existing at epidemic levels in this country right now. And for people who really want to find out about it, they can A) Read the book or B) Ask a cop. Get a cop in a private moment, ask him what is really happening out there, who’s committing all the crimes. Cops love this book. Cops buy this book for their families. People aren’t talking about it, and that’s why the book is being so well received.
TheDC: If this a racial thing, why do journalists refuse to print the races of the victims and perpetrators in their stories?
FLAHERTY: Here’s why: You remember last year in Norfolk, where the two reporters got beat up and O’Reilly covered it? Jesse Waters went down there and stuck a microphone in the editor’s face while he was in his car, and he goes, “Well, Jesse, we don’t have any evidence this is racially motivated.”
Well, every crime by itself is not racially significant. Most racial violence does not feature somebody sprinkling racial expletives over the racial violence crime, turning it into a hate crime. Most racial violence is not like that. But when you take what the book does, all these examples, string them together, and its says these are exponentially out of proportion.
So the book says, “Listen, there’s something going on here, because we have all of this video stuff going on.” So do reporters have to identify every single crime by race? No. Would it be good if every once in a while, The Washington Post said, “Listen, we’ve got a problem on the metro bike trail. And guess what? It’s all a bunch of black people beating up white people. That is a fact. A bunch of black people beating up gay people. That is a fact.” And nobody’s doing that…
People are ready to hear about this. And the way I wrote this is without generalizations, without stereotypes, without apologies. I don’t pretend this is not a difficult topic, but it is also an important one.”
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
