A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE. Last weekend some black people did some violence in the Riverwest neighborhood of Milwaukee, which sucks, and beat on some white people, which also sucks. For the blogbrethren, by the ancient code of Ooga Booga, this means race war. Vox Populi:

It's really not that difficult to understand that whereas small minorities usually conform, more or less, to the behavioral patterns of the majority that outnumbers them, they cease to do so once they become the numerically dominant population. And to be fair, why on Earth should they? It's now their territory by ancient right of conquest and modern right of self-determination. So, one can safely predict that it will not take long before the Milwaukee crime rate rises to the level of Detroit.

Or sinks to the level of New York? I live in Harlem, which we can safely say is a majority-black district. Here's my precinct's crime stats. Here's a piece of them:


Click it and you'll see that this little slice of heaven is pretty safe. Over the past few years, some categories of crime are up and some are down, but generally we're doing very well, consistent with the big crime drop in many U.S. cities; the 32 is very, very different place than it was when I came to New York years ago.

Felonious assaults are slightly up -- 161 in 2011 versus 147 in 2010, year-to-date (this in a district of hundreds of thousands of souls). But fear not, fellow honkies, there's no evidence that we are the targets. We have no stats on cross-color crime, but here are a few recent stories: "Harlem Mother Dies After Attack by Son, Police Say"; "Police Arrest Man Who Allegedly Stabbed Aunt." Maybe these occurred in racially blended families, but I can be forgiven for doubting the motivation was to Get Whitey. It's possible also the 67-year-old man who was beaten and mugged in May was white, though in my observation I'm about the oldest white guy around these parts.

Racially-motivated violence is not unknown, but anyone who's been around knows that the L.A. riots of 1992 are neither ongoing nor nationwide, and that Americans generally fuck each other up for reasons other than race hatred.

Meanwhile, back in Milwaukee, though the rightblogger spin has generally been along the lines of "once again, no retribution" (retribution?), the actual story has been "Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn hears from Riverwest residents at public meeting" and "Parents begin to turn in children in Riverwest case." Citizens of all kinds react negatively to disorder, though some people enjoy telling one another that the dusky hordes (aka "Obama Supporters") would prefer anti-Caucasian pogroms.

You may be tempted to believe that these guys are motivated by racism (or "raaaaacism"), and it's not a bad bet; but I think the simpler explanation is that they just hope racists will hear them and be motivated to turn out on Election Day.