November 25, 2013

Yglesias: I wasn't a victim of "Knockout Game" because I was only knocked down, not out

From Slate:
I Was a Victim of the Fake "Knockout Game" Trend 
By Matthew Yglesias 
True story. A couple of years back, I was walking home at night on North Capitol Street here in Washington, D.C., when two dudes randomly assaulted me before running away without stealing anything. At the time, I didn't think it was all that strange—I've lived in urban areas all my life, and plenty of people I know have been victims of anonymous street crime. The good news is that urban crime rates have been trending downward since I've been about 9 years old, so we're making important progress in this regard. 
The weird thing was that after I blogged briefly about this, a number of conservative bloggers, particularly those of a racist bent [me, of course], decided that this wasn't just one of many random acts of criminality that occur in the big city. No! It was an instance of "Knockout King," which I suppose was the 2011 version of 2013's more robust Knockout Game white racial panic. 
But to be clear about something—insofar as there's supposedly a "game" here where the contestant tries to knock someone out with one punch, that absolutely isn't what happened. I was knocked down, but definitely not out, and then after that I got kicked a bunch of times. If you're familiar with the phrase "don't kick a man while he's down," take note—it really hurts quite a bit to be kicked while you're down. In fact, this substantial deviation from the "rules" of the "game" is a lot of what made getting violently assaulted for no reason such a physically unpleasant experience. ...
People shouldn't minimize these concerns about urban violence, but it accomplishes nothing in terms of tackling them to concoct weird trends and games out of thin air.

I'm struck by how our society wants victims of black-on-white violence to play the macho tough guy in public, as Yglesias tries to do here, or as journalist Brian Beutler (who was shot during a robbery while walking with a journalist named Matthew) does here.

Being a crime victim is, among other things, being psychologically assaulted.

As I wrote immediately after Yglesias announced he'd been attacked:
Beyond physical injuries, well, I've never been the victim of street violence, but judging from the psychological trauma I've felt merely from being the victim of burglars -- the reminder of one's own insecurity, the insult to one's self-respect -- that aspect of crime shouldn't be overlooked. And being punched and kicked by strangers is far worse. 

Our culture has made much progress in better psychological treatment of women who are raped -- e.g., providing female cops to do the interviewing of the victim, counseling, support groups, and so forth. It helps crime victims to have your culture acknowledge the terrible thing done to you, and that it wasn't your fault.

But this balm is selectively dispensed upon our culture's usual Who? Whom? lines.

For youngish white male victims of black violence, the media's message is: Don't be a wimp. Walk it off, dude. Don't go crying about how it makes you feel. It's not part of a larger pattern, it's just something that happened to you personally. Nobody else cares about what happened to you because it's not a Thing we are supposed to talk about on TV, it's just your problem. Remember, what does not kill you makes you stronger, so, shut up and deal with it. 

69 comments:

Anonymous said...

If he wasn't knocked out it doesn't mean that the yoofs who assaulted him weren't playing Knockout Game. It means they sucked at knocking out a small hobbit.

Anonymous said...

I thumbed through a slate article saying this game is bs. The author said something like, it does happen, but it's not necessarily a trend, we don't have good numbers, it's being hyped by the wrong people, and white people commit crimes against black people too.

The author doesn't provide us with what would constitute a valid trend in this regard. Perhaps if Zimmerman was doing it?

There is no discourse in these matters. Everything is subtext. Hat's off to you Steve for seeing the patterns.

Anonymous said...

Not only is Yglesias a victim of the knock out game, he's a victim of hegemonic masculinity.

DCThrowback said...

You're being far to generous here Steve. The dominant culture wishes this to go away. It has no time for even "suck it up, dude". The attacks are either creations of the Right Wing noise machine (LOL - I love the projection) OR "no, this wasn't a racist attack because _____."

I make it a point to not follow Yglesias on twitter, but reply to tweets he will read, always bringing up his attack, like this. I like to think my repeated needles had an effect. Big fan of him linking you and GLPiggy, too. "racist" LOL. What a douchebag.

anon said...

" Don't be a wimp. Walk it off, dude. Don't go crying about how it makes you feel"

This message is also delivered to family members of white victims of black crime, including parents of murdeted children.

Anonymous said...

Yes, even though you can see actual videos of it on YouTube (and elsewhere), it's a "myth."

This might have flown in 1994 or even 2004. But who is gonna buy that now?

Anonymous said...

In fact, this substantial deviation from the "rules" of the "game" is a lot of what made getting violently assaulted for no reason such a physically unpleasant experience.

What a moron. Maybe he needs to be knocked out once - losing consciousness and getting a concussion - to know what really hurts.

David said...

There's also the hint that the victim deserves it. Like a school child who is paddled, one is supposed to take one's just punishment like a man and swagger away with a laugh saying, "That wasn't so bad." After all, one deserved it, so playing for sympathy eould be uncool.

candid_observer said...

What does it even mean to say that the game doesn't exist, or that the trend doesn't exist?

There was a video on a newschannel in which a number of people (all but one black) were talking about the game. They were all making something up?

There are at least two videos showing how a, well, youth came from the blind side of a victim and knocked the victim out. These things didn't happen? If they did happen, it's no big deal, because we have always had random violence?

What is even the thinking here?

I do wonder if video is not going to undo a lot of the spin the ideological hacks have tried to put on this sort of crime.

It's not hard to spin something when there's no video record of it. It's very hard to do so when there is. Those videos of the "youths" knocking out their victims are impossible to view without being shocked at the wantonness of the crime, the pure sociopathy. You see everything you need to see to come to your own conclusions.

TheLRC said...

Cail Corishev said: But for Zuckerberg specifically, he doesn't need people to move to the US to be Facebook employees OR consumers. Mass immigration probably won't affect his bottom line enough to pay him back for what he's sinking into advocacy. He has other motives.

Other motives, yes -- some of it's what's been discussed upthread, but don't forget the recent discussion we had here on iSteve about 'Opening borders as the Yankee missionary impulse'.

In his initial article, Steve identified the rage for open borders as a transmutation of the persistent 'Yankee missionary impulse' that has run through so much US history.

I added (this was the thread in which I took on the name The Last Read Calvinist) that one element of that impulse is the classic Calvinist guilt/doubt paradox, i.e. the guilt the 'chosen' feel in relation to their undeserved status, and the gnawing doubt that they might not really be chosen after all. This pressure then has to be relieved, and the chosen status reaffirmed, by acts of conspicuous merit. As I mentioned in that thread, "The post-Calvinist chosen-vs-guilty struggle is currently most evident in the immigration debate: why do we who were born here deserve this great country? How dare we keep others from enjoying this earthly salvation, when only bad people would be so selfish?"

This provides motivation aplenty, in addition to all the other factors we've discussed in this thread. It leaves me very, very worried that the immigration reform legislation currently lying dormant in the congress is going to be reanimated, sooner or later, and that something disastrous will inevitably be passed.

Anonymous said...

The problem is with conservatives who care about such victims. Let them get hit more. I don't even know why Sailer keeps feeling sympathizing with Libs who get attacked by blacks when Libs show no such sympathy to white conservative victims.
End Stop and Frisk in NY.
Bring in more blacks to DC.

DC was much better(for conservatives and the nation) when it was mostly black. A lot of talented Libs dare not go near it, and thus, DC didn't attract the best talents, and so it wasn't as powerful as it is today.

Now, DC is safe(or considerably safer), so it's a magnet for liberal elites, and so, Liberalism has grown more powerful than ever in DC.
In yrs past, many of the liberal elites stayed away from DC.
And when NY and other big cities were dangerous, many white libs in cities moved to the suburbs and became more conservative.

But the likes of Giuliani who cleaned up big cities made a huge mistake. Libs moved back to cities like NY and DC and are now more powerful than ever with their concentrated urbanity.

Black crime in cities was a huge boon to conservatives. Cons should never have tried to have fixed it as the main urban beneficiaries of reduction in crime--Jews, homos, and etc--were gonna use their newfound power and security to attack the right.

So, I hope Yglesias gets knocked down some more. The hell do I care about that Jew.

TheLRC said...

Ah, sorry -- I suspect that I just posted a long comment here meant for the Silicon Chasm thread. Steve, if you see it, could you cut and paste it to the right thread?

Thanks.

Svigor said...

Hahahaha, what a duplicitous little weasel. This RRRRRACIST!!! right here, and all the rest of us, were insisting that his attackers were black. And it took him months (IIRC) to finally admit to that fact. We weren't quibbling over how Yglesias defines knockout king*.

Gosh, how could RRRRACISM!!! afford its evil, knuckle-dragging adherents predictive power distinctly absent in liberals?

* I would like to point out that Yglesias is so disingenuous that he passes for a fool; any activity at which one tries and fails doesn't count as a game? Really?

Don't be a wimp. Walk it off, dude. Don't go crying about how it makes you feel. It's not part of a larger pattern, it's just something that happened to you personally. Nobody else cares about what happened to you because it's not a Thing we are supposed to talk about on TV, it's just your problem. Remember, what does not kill you makes you stronger, so, shut up and deal with it.

Go to the back of the bus, YT, the front is all full up.

It's so absurdly transparent. Blacks, liberals' paragons of toughness, whine and bitch incessantly about the larger patterns they suffer at the hands of whites. Libs lap it up and beg for seconds, do an about-face and tell whites to suck it up. It's a transparent psychological ploy to get the victims to STFU so they won't spread unflattering truths about blacks.

Cuz pointing the finger at blacks in modern America is such a signifier of wimpiness and cowardice, lol. Time to reach into that bag of tricks and come up with something plausible, guys. C'mon, Matt, exercise those vaunted Jewish brains already.

Svigor said...

In the next breath, Matty will be whining about how whites cross the street, clutch their purses, and lock their car doors when they see blacks, how this deeply and irreparably damages black psyches, and how wrong it is for whites to behave this way.

yerwrong said...

"Don't be a wimp. Walk it off, dude. Don't go crying about how it makes you feel. It's not part of a larger pattern, it's just something that happened to you personally."

Steve, you forgot "And you probably deserved it."

Now trying say that to a rape victim who was wearing a shirt skirt.

Anonymous said...

Seems like you're touching on some MRA stuff here, huh Steve.


Off-topic: Obama was speaking on immigration reform today in SF and got heckled by a child of Chinese illegal immigrants, who shouted about ending all deportations by executive order and the usual stuff. Obama actually held off the secret service and responded to the guy in agreement:

"If in fact I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, I would do so."

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Ju-Hong-UC-Berkley-Graduate-Heckles-Obama-on-Deportation-233362861.html

Geoff Matthews said...

So, not 'knock out game', but certainly 'polar bear hunting'.

Anonymous said...

Don't be a wimp. Walk it off, dude. Don't go crying about how it makes you feel. It's not part of a larger pattern, it's just something that happened to you personally. Nobody else cares about what happened to you because it's not a Thing we are supposed to talk about on TV, it's just your problem. Remember, what does not kill you makes you stronger, so, shut up and deal with it.

And life is one big government school, so cut your own head off and be normal for once.

Anonymous said...

I got jumped by three black guys. One had a knife. First they tried to do the "knockout" thing, but I ducked it. Then one pulled out a knife. I ran up to a stoop so my back would be against a wall, and I was higher up than they were. They were all afraid of getting kicked in the face, so they wouldn't commit. All the while I was yelling for help.

After a minute they went walking down the street. I ran to my house (took place almost in front of my home) and called the police. Went back out to see if they were still around, and a white middle-aged man came staggering down the sidewalk, carrying a briefcase. They'd beat him, and sliced his pants trousers with a knife numerous times, from the crotch, all the way down to the pant cuff, so you could see his bare bloody leg.
He asked me to call the police, I told him I had.

He was in shock, and kept saying, incredulously, "they didn't rob me. they didn't ask for any money..."

They didn't ask me for money either. They did stab me in the back of my leg. Hadn't noticed till one of the cops pointed it out.

When the cops came, they informed us that some of the local blacks in the area were "pledging" for membership of a gang, and part of the qualification process is slicing up a white guy.

The cop taking my report asked, "did you take a swing at 'em?" I said, "no, I didn't. they had a knife."

Cop says, "I would have swung on 'em. I figure if they're taking me out, I might as well take one of them with me."

That was all the psychological counseling I got from the police.

And Steve's right. Total strangers trying to knock you out, or in my case, trying to slice you up for no reason is quite a bit like a rape, and the police, in our case, were for shit dealing with the victim. They left me with the opinion that they thought we were pussies.

Anonymous said...

I think this focus on the "Knockout Game" specifically is counterproductive. It's just one particular form of "random" (the media's favored term) black on white violence. The thugs who gunned down that Australian kid a few months back weren't playing "The Knockout Game", but it was part of the same larger phenomenon.

Rhadamanthus said...

Yglesias feels no reluctance, no shame in calling you a racist. What an *sshole.

Gilbert Ratchet said...

Whatever happened to mailbox baseball?

Sequester Grundleplith said...

It's pretty simple, really: for SWPL men, this kind of response is the only acceptable expression of machismo.

Anonymous said...

The Atlantic Monthly gave Yglesias his big start in journalism about ten years ago. I was a subscriber for over a decade starting in the early eighties. Just as with he Washington Monthly, sometime around 1995, George Soros and his lot through one his numerous front groups like the Center for American Progress got his hooks on the major liberal monthly and really turned them in to Cultural Marxist rags.

I remember when the Atlantic featured ground breaking articles by E,O Wilson, James Q. Wilson, Charles Murray, Roy Beck of NumberUSA.... The Washington Monthy used to have Micky Kaus, Michael Fumento, William McGowan,,,,

Have not looked at The Atlantic Montlhly, The Washington Montly or Slate in over a decade.

Honestly, I don't believe my politics have changed that much. I am still a "Reagan Democrat" anti-marxist liberal in many ways. But my God those mags are now cultural marxist trash.

Ichabod Crane said...

Just posted on The Daily Beast:

"Guess What? The ‘Knockout Game’ Is America’s Latest Phony Panic"

The article basically says the game doesn't exist because if it did, that would make black teenagers look bad:

From the article:
"It should be said the same logic drives the racial profiling behind policies such as “stop and frisk.” Never mind that the vast majority of young black men don’t commit crimes; the behavior of a few turns everyone into a suspect.

Which means that, if the past is any indication, today’s panic over “knockout” is almost certain to become tomorrow’s excuse for justifying our skepticism and fear of black teenagers."

C. Van Carter said...

Update the slogan: a liberal is a liberal who has been mugged.

C. Van Carter said...

Accepting his claim he was attacked for "no reason" is white privileged. Until proven otherwise we should assume he said something racist to provoke the attack.

C. Van Carter said...

He says he went to expensive summer camp. Talk about white privileged.

countenance said...

The power of ideological cults and cultural Marxism:

Exhibit A: Matthew Yglesias

countenance said...

Anon wrote:

Off-topic: Obama was speaking on immigration reform today in SF and got heckled by a child of Chinese illegal immigrants, who shouted about ending all deportations by executive order and the usual stuff. Obama actually held off the secret service and responded to the guy in agreement: "If in fact I could solve all these problems without passing laws in Congress, I would do so."

I respond:

What deportations? Actual deportations happen so rarely these days that the concept of deportation is largely a chimera. There are so many legal hurdles between the Federal government starting the civil litigation process of deportation and actual physical removal that the former rarely results in the latter. But the former is how the Feds and certain politicians can get away with saying they're "deporting" illegals.

I doubt Obama issues a sweeping omnibus EO stopping deportations, especially now, because all it would be doing is essentially keeping the same de facto policy we have already, but he would be on record going into an election year as "stopping deportations" (or seeming to do that).

Anonymous said...

The good news is that urban crime rates have been trending downward since I've been about 9 years old, so we're making important progress in this regard.

I noticed for the past few years this has been the progressives' response to white conservatives complaining about black crime. Whether it was the Wisconsin State Fair or the knock-out game, progressives kept uttering that "FBI crime statistics show that violent crime is falling, blah, blah."

Then they always make a point to insist that even if one was the victim of one of these diminishing crimes, the crime itself was random, isolated, not part of a larger pattern, and the victim was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Of course when the victim is black, declining FBI crime states mean nothing and the crime was anything but random and isolated, and is definitely part of a larger pattern.

There must be a good logical way to defeat their dismissive statement. Do any of you debaters on iSteve have any good counter arguments?

Bill said...

Sympathy for Matt Yglesias is entirely wasted. He just thinks the attack was a "friendly fire" incident where the poor, dull "youths" simply mistook him for some ordinary cracker.

Anonymous said...

I would never use Matt Y and "Macho" in the same thought. Have you seen and listened to the guy?

Boys in High School probably beat MY because he's an uber-wimp. Matt's probably used to it.

And MY's still playing the race card. George Washington knew nothing 'cause he was a raciss.

Son of Brock Landers said...

yglesias did concede you noticing it but immediately called you a racist in linking to you. It is the EXACT same method he used with Jason Richwine where Fats linked to Richwine's study and tweeted that Richwine is a racist.

Anonymous said...

>>"For youngish white male victims of black violence, the media's message is: Don't be a wimp. Walk it off, dude. Don't go crying about how it makes you feel. It's not part of a larger pattern, it's just something that happened to you personally. Nobody else cares about what happened to you because it's not a Thing we are supposed to talk about on TV, it's just your problem. Remember, what does not kill you makes you stronger, so, shut up and deal with it. "




Steve, we should remember this paragraph the next time Yglesias writes an article concerning any black on white or white on black crime (especially the latter) a la Trayvon Martin. Come to think of it, as he is an hispanic, I wonder which side of the Zimmerman/Martin controversy Yglesias took? Or does the question even need to be asked?


Also, I'd like to know where he gets the assertion that urban violence has been on the decline ever since he's been young. Where exactly does he get that statistic, since it is not quoted in the artlcle?

Funny how those of a set ideology will wave away certain unpleasant stats that do not fit their worldview and yet know exactly how to appeal to said stats if and whenever they believe it will help to strengthen their straw man societal arguments.

blogger said...

One thing for sure, if whites were doing this to blacks, it wouldn't be a called a myth but a national emergency.

A real myth is the KKK at Oberlin or people who didn't like Diana Ross killed Detroit.

Anonymous said...

Crime rate is down but still high. In some places, very high. I mean all those killings in Chicago aren't myths.

Anonymous said...

Yglesias sounds like he's suffering from Stockholm Syndrome.

Upon closer examination, I think that disorder could go a long way in explaining SWPL in the larger society. Controlling and intimidating relationships can create the syndrome at the personal level.

Maybe at the societal level, controlling and intimidating relationships between ethnic groups can generate this dynamic too, giving us psychological specimens like Yglesias and Angelina Jolie.

There is the classic fight or flight reactions to attack, but there is also the less considered reaction of "submission".

- gatsby

eah said...

In a better time, this guy would be teaching HS English somewhere, and only a relatively few unfortunate kids would have to put up with him. The little worm.

Anonymous said...

>>"C. Van Carter said...
Update the slogan: a liberal is a liberal who has been mugged."



And he refuses to live in reality much less face it.

Anonymous said...

We in the center have been had again - the left is winning the word game.

What this is about - is “Polar Bear Hunting” - NOT - “Knockout Game.”

In our highly charged racial culture - the most significant thing about this is black on white targeting - NOT - some fun game for nameless thugs.

What this is about is both things - leaving out the “Polar Bear” part of it - is a giant lie!

p.s. Black/white race relations are far worse today, then when Obama came into office - end of story!

p,s, What chance does America have of righting itself with the current MSM in charge of 95% of our public communications. The answer is ZERO.

Anonymous said...

It was an instance of "Knockout King," which I suppose was the 2011 version of 2013's more robust Knockout Game white racial panic.

It isn't a Knockout Game Jewish racial panic, Matty? Didn't this story get its legs from Jewish communities in New York City?

Anonymous said...

Really bad idea replacing Equestrian events with knockout game in next Brazilian Olympics. I think it sends the wrong message to these youths.

Dan in DC

Anonymous said...

C. Van Carter said...
Update the slogan: a liberal is a liberal who has been mugged.


Hilarious. Can I steal that?

Dan in DC

Mr. Anon said...

Note to Matthew Yglesias: If it happens again, just lie back and enjoy it.

Mr. Anon said...

"Sequester Grundleplith said...

It's pretty simple, really: for SWPL men, this kind of response is the only acceptable expression of machismo."

Or to clarify, the only macho thing they are allowed to do is get beat up by a black dude?

Mr. Anon said...

"C. Van Carter said...

Update the slogan: a liberal is a liberal who has been mugged."

Bravo. You are indeed a card, Mr. Carter.

Anonymous said...

As a white jew in America I sing a song of hallelujah when the Ygies odd the world's receive their just Commupance. They should be the only recipients of the crime they cause.

Dave Pinsen said...

Yglesias is 6'2", IIRC, and from the looks of it, I'd guess > 240lbs. He probably has a large, thick skull to go along with those dimensions.

TGGP said...

Anonymous fucks who say "Fuck them, they don't like us": way to contribute to a livable society. Let's all descend into barbarism, our only enjoyment being the knowledge that liberals experience it too.

I'm not aware of any "yoofs" calling it "Polar Bear Hunting". I doubt the idea of a polar bear or the sport of hunting crosses their heads very often, and the usage of a metaphor is a tad intellectual for them. We also know that they're much more indiscriminate, additionally going after asians, hispanics and yes blacks that seem like easy targets. Don't overestimate the amount of planning put into it.

Anonymous said...

"The good news is that urban crime rates have been trending downward since I've been about 9 years old, so we're making important progress in this regard. "

I think it's important not to ignore the fact that the dramatic upsurge in our hispanic population have forced blacks, armed with section 8 vouchers to move into non-urban communities.

Many a reporter has been befuddled by the dramatic drop in crime rates in Compton, while failing to mention that Hispanics have ethnically cleansed that city to where it's now at least 75% hispanic. Meanwhile, the destination of choice for former black Comptonites has been the high desert area like Lancaster and Victorville, where violent crime has skyrocketed.

Anonymous said...

This SWPL masochism thing has its roots in 'muscular Christianity.' I see a Moldbug piece in the offing.

Gilbert P.

josh said...

When I taught at a 97% NAM alternative school, I used to goad the kids into telling me about this kind of stuff. This is definitely real and was *very* widespread 5 years ago (an informal pole revealed 100% of my black students, male and female, had randomly assaulted somone at leas once). From what I could tell, it is mostly middle school kids and the most common target was actually homeless people, with whites second.

My illiterate students were, I'm sure, in league with the right-wing media.

Boothill said...

I think the people who embrace this type of thinking believe they are establishing their bona fides when the "revolution comes" and inoculating themselves against its worst excesses. They aren't. They are simply negotiating for a cushioned seat in the tumbril.

Peter the Shark said...

"We also know that they're much more indiscriminate, additionally going after asians, hispanics and yes blacks that seem like easy targets."

I suspect that's true. In that sense the "Knockout Game" isn't strictly racist. The target is anyone soft and terrorizable - and in the minds of black kids most white people qualify. I'm sure "oreos" are targeted all the time, and heavily muscular tattoed white men probably don't have much to fear.

Anonymous said...

Yglesias is 6'2", IIRC, and from the looks of it, I'd guess > 240lbs.

Seriously? From the way he writes, I'd have thought 5'6", 130lbs.

Mattrique Iglesias said...

"But to be clear about something—insofar as there's supposedly a "game" here where the contestant tries to knock someone out with one punch, that absolutely isn't what happened. I was knocked down, but definitely not out"

If you're not putting up 180 every round, you're absolutely not playing darts.

Marc B said...

Using racist as defamatory term is so 2007. Matthew just sent a ton of potential new readers to the Sailerhood.

Anonymous said...

Crime rates?! Does anyone buy them anymore?

In my little SWPL village, anything that would negatively influence real estate prices never sees the light of day. We had a kid OD on heroin in the bathroom of the local coffee shop. I was there when the EMT hit him with the Narcan and revived him. The police report in the local paper spoke of incident as "a drunk and disorderly patron".

I talked to one of the older veteran cops I know about it, and he said the police report is now like the newspaper. It reports both fact and opinion.

Anonymous said...

the media's message is: Don't be a wimp. Walk it off, dude.

You're way too generous here. Liberals approve of black on white violence, they get off on it, particularly when it hits middle and lower class whites. They're willing to accept a little collateral damage among themselves. Jim Goad hits the nail on the head when he says Throughout history, those who rule the streets have often served as the shock troops and enforcers for those who rule the nation. This isn’t some empty nihilistic ritual—it’s a highly political act of establishing dominance and marking one’s territory. These black thugs are liberalism's stormtroopers so of course they approve of the violence. They're not confused, their enemies are confused.

Anonymous said...

Yglesias wiki page updated (for now, at least).

Antioco Dascalon said...


"But to be clear about something—insofar as there's supposedly a "game" here where the contestants try to win by scoring the most points, that absolutely isn't what happened. The Vikings-Packers game ended in a tie" So, it wasn't a football game.

And I am sure that Slate writers have the same high standards of what qualifies as a trend when they talk about hate crimes, mass shootings or violence against women.

David said...

>same method he used with Jason Richwine where Fats linked to Richwine's study and tweeted that Richwine is a racist<

This method threatens to give racism a good name among the intelligent.

Anonymous said...

Take a gander at slate.com. This is the kind of semi-literate mush that opposes you.

Yglesias is foolish to link to Sailer. Some of the smarter visitors of Slate--nobody reads that site; notice the writing is not meant to be digested; for one thing Slate couldn't afford to hire writers--some of the more curious passersby, window shoppers, of Slate are going to contrast Sailer to that tabloid, predictably sentimental, vehemently middlebrow webzine they have occasion to toggle through on their smartphones, and they're going to end up not as devotees of Emily Bazelon.

Such middlebrow liberalism--and I get it, it's fun, I listen to NPR--is vulnerable mainly in its bad taste. It is vulnerable on aesthetics.

Anonymous said...

So Yglesias is basically saying, yeah, it was real, in an I-got-my-urban-hipster-real-life scout-badge...but it wasn't real, because I was a big thick 30 year old in the prime of my life, and they didn't hurt me. But still I get to make comments about what it all means, including to people who have had their faces broken, their brains damage, their sight destroyed, their lives ended.

Hey, octogenarian person lying in your blood--suck it up! You deserved to be attacked for being picked out as someone to be attacked!

This man and his tendency toward betraying elitist Marxist sociopathy is a good example of why I no longer read any of my previous subscriptions--The Atlantic, The Nation, or any of the Soros online propaganda engines.

He is also a good example of a certain form of affirmative action at work. He's dim about real life, never having experienced it, he can't spell, he was elevated to the liberal punditocracy while still a child, he is Slate's business and economics correspondent despite having no training in either (his Harvard BA was in philosophy), and he went to the Dalton School, the super-elite Ivy-League prep school that also counts Eric Schlosser and Anderson Cooper among its alumni.

Surely someone with tons of credibility to speak for the Man On The Street, eh?

But I'll remember his "suck it up" Rx the next time I hear some black woman with six kids by five guys complaining that her welfare doesn't pay for everything she can think of wanting.

Anonymous said...

On the matter of Yglesias thinking he can glibly revile and dismiss Mr. Sailer by calling him Rayciss, and herd his mooing readers in the same direction....

I first found VDARE at least 12 years ago from a link at Slate, Salon, or maybe it was ThinkProgress or Kos or DU or something. It was in a comment or piece reviling Mr. Sailer as the arch racist of the cosmos, the love child of Hitler, Cthulhu, and Bull Connor.

Being one to always enjoy in a Menckensian spirit the fulminations of idiots, as well as a good challenge to my opinions and paradigms, I went to the site. Full, of course, of elitist certainty about what I'd find.

How shocking to my former liberal/progressive self to find that Steve made more sense than the increasingly demented mental gymnastics/St. Vitus's Dance around race I was reading in my usual sources and immersed in in every part of my professional, personal, and community life.

Something happened to liberalism in my lifetime, and it took me a few years to figure it out, with no small shock:

What happened was that anti-white racism became the new religio-political orthodoxy of the left.

Anonymous said...

If the purpose of tye game is to scare a bunch of old white women . . .

Anonymous said...

"People shouldn't minimize these concerns about urban violence, but it accomplishes nothing in terms of tackling them to concoct weird trends and games out of thin air."

When Tawana Brawley and Crystal Gail Mangum falsely accused white males of raping them,these guys wanted to crucify, without trial, those that they accused.What made them so certain that there was a legitimate white male on black female rape epidemic without ever even seeing any evidence,and indeed when all the research shows that most white males aren't even attracted to black females?

The thousands of recorded incidences of black males randomly assaulting whites,documented by hundreds of hours of video recordings didn't happen,but the near zero rape rate of black females by white males evidences a sinister "rape culture"? Are they getting these conclusions from tea leaves or something?

Yglesias,unless you pass for African,there's no sense in covering up these crimes. Zimmerman was hispanic too,and Trayvon still tried to pull the knockout game on him. And no,it doesn't matter if there are rules and points,because apparently,"microaggressions" are serious enough to spill ink on, and randomly assaulting white people is an order of magnitude more serious. Not because I'm white,but because only a moron would think a road rage-type incident has done more damage to the victim than a suckerpunch to the skull that causes cerebral hemorrhaging.

Anonymous said...

There is no "trend" it isn't "spreading", there are no statistics out there on it. You don't find it funny that when people run this headline that there aren't any numbers to back it up? When someone is assaulted, it is labeled as an assault, they don't file it under "knock out game" incase someone needs to look it up later. I've searched through every article concerning this and not one gives any information as to it being a new trend or being nationwide, not even the original source.