Destructive Flash Mob At Jacksonville Walmart

[BridgeTroll]

Bridgetroll, ha, yes, I bet some of those kids bought stuff. I should find the videos of the mob scenes where America's adults trample over other adults to buy stuff. As long as you are buying any behavior is okay, right? God forbid, you act foolish when your not forking over money. That's stupid. Is that how we define proper behavior? This is over $1,500 dollars which I will bet $15 is totally made up. Police asks wal-mart manager "how much do you think was stolen or damaged?"

Wal-mart manager says "well, based on our flash mob algorithms we are estimating that each youth stole $3.00 worth of product and damaged another $2.00 worth of goods and infrastructure, 300 x $5 = $1500. But we won't know the full extent of the damage until we do our quarterly inventory in 45 days."

I have to give those kids credit for self-restraint. Did anyone else see the giant containers of watermelons? I'd take everyone's commentary on wal-mart behavioral ethics a little more seriously if those watermelons were smashed all over the floor. But that didn't happen. In fact, from that video. I don't see kids doing anything but being excited and loud and possibly, obnoxious.

Instead, of freaking out about what the kids actually did which is nothing. Let's talk about the real fear...what if it had become something serious. That's the scary part, right? It didn't though. To make some statement about black culture based on a three minute video of youth fleeing a party and congregating at another location is wrong. To say things like, that's "why black people have such a bad rep." is also wrong.

Garden Guy, to call those kids stupid. Or, their parents stupid...really? You know, America does a really good job putting people in jail. It's amazing how effective that hasn't been.

Rofl... thanks Thecat... you are part of the problem.  You offer refuge, excuses, and justifications (in your mind) to the people in this video...

I have to give those kids credit for self-restraint.

Really??  I mean... REALLY?? 

Blaming Bush would make more sense...

[KenFSU]

Anyone can destroy a Walmart.

If you really want to impress me, put a Big Lots back together...

[AshleyLauren]

Anyone can destroy a Walmart.

If you really want to impress me, put a Big Lots back together...

Ken Wins!!

[TheCat]

Rofl... thanks Thecat... you are part of the problem.  You offer refuge, excuses, and justifications (in your mind) to the people in this video...

Please answer: 1) What is the problem? 2) What are my excuses to the problem?

I'm making two points: 1) Race is irrelevant to this situation 2) nothing happened at this wal-mart - which probably has more than 1500 dollars worth of goods stolen from them everyday. Oh, and a third point 3) race is not discussed when social "chaos" is created by non-blacks. Unless the situation is a direct result of a race issue it's not relevant. Meaning, if the KKK decided to raid a wal-mart you might want to discuss race.

[KenFSU]

1) Race is irrelevant to this situation

I10 east, we would not be having social commentary about white culture if the teens were white. That's pretty much it. We only seem to typify and stereotype a culture when it is the "other." It's not about being an uncle tom nor is it about being a racist it is about the irrelevancy of the race topic to the subject, mobbing wal-mart. It's irrelevant that these kids were black.

I was a kid once. And, I was of the rebellious quality. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt teenagers of all races know how to misrepresent their cultural heritage. I feel very confident, and this is an assumptive guess, that most kids did not get a "you're making us look bad" talk...in terms of race relations, anyway.

You're absolutely right, the reaction would be much more muted if the mob was white. It might still be considered a newsworthy situation (like when the flood of white guys stormed Abercrombie and took their shirts off), but race wouldn't be at the forefront of the discussion.

And I completely agree that the reaction -- which is the real story here, not the incident itself -- is based more on fear than reason.

I still don't think you can realistically isolate race from the incident though. Society doesn't exist in a vacuum. To completely divorce the situation -- or more appropriately, the reaction -- from race, culture, and history wouldn't paint an accurate picture. Jacksonville has an extremely ugly history when it comes to race relations, and over the decades, when large groups of blacks congegrate, racial tension tends to boil over quickly. And, far more often than not, the blacks are the ones portrayed in a negative light. The Jacksonville Journal, for example, painted the relatively peaceful black protesters (and the Boomerangs) as the instigators in the Axe Handle Saturday riots, not with the heavily armed mob waiting to attack them.

It's not a big surprise, then, that some people are reacting as if the mob stormed the store, emptied the registers, and raped the cashiers.

I definitely put a large part of the blame on the local (and national) media as well, who's headlines have suggested a much more destructive, dangerous incident than the one that appears to have actually transpired inside the store.

For all the talk of how progressive Jacksonville is for electing a black mayor, and how much race relations have improved in the last two decades, the city still has a lot of unresolved racial tension that is just waiting to boil back to the surface when things like this happen.

All that said, it was a stupid thing to do regardless of race, and whoever fired the gun in the parking lot needs to spend a year or two in jail.

[I-10east]

The PC, bleeding heart liberal way to act to situations like this one (and the Regency shooting etc etc etc) is turn a blind eye, and to be in denial, because everything is all hunky-dory in the black community. Black on black violence isn't commonplace throughout the USA. As a black man, I'm NOT supposed to be disgraced when I see scenes like the Lem Turner crew across the USA, many WAY more worse with violent outcomes. Some blacks even making people out of martyrs; Attacking innocent people (non black) that had nothing to do with G. Zimmerman because they are doing it "for Treyvon". So keep living in denial. Please don't try to me me out like I'm against my own race; I love my race, I just got that old school mindset for calling things out like I see them.       

[TheCat]

KenFSU...yes. I appreciate that perspective. However, that makes the conversation not about what happened in the wal-mart but about our reaction to what happened. That seems like a more interesting conversation.

I10East, I'm seriously confounded. You have to know that evil is common to every race. It is not uniquely black like you seem to think. Should I list out other heinous crimes committed by other races?  That's not necessary, right?

I don't have to find links to crimes committed against blacks just because they were black, do I?

Please tell me how I'm living in denial.

[TheCat]

You know what is not the topic of conversation...his race.
You know why...it's not relevant.

http://www.youtube.com/v/FcOXf-U1ZRA

[BridgeTroll]

Rofl... thanks Thecat... you are part of the problem.  You offer refuge, excuses, and justifications (in your mind) to the people in this video...

Please answer: 1) What is the problem? 2) What are my excuses to the problem?

I'm making two points: 1) Race is irrelevant to this situation 2) nothing happened at this wal-mart - which probably has more than 1500 dollars worth of goods stolen from them everyday. Oh, and a third point 3) race is not discussed when social "chaos" is created by non-blacks. Unless the situation is a direct result of a race issue it's not relevant. Meaning, if the KKK decided to raid a wal-mart you might want to discuss race.

A)  I have not mentioned or referred to race.
B)  The problem is conduct... which is clear for all to see.
C)  You applaud the restraint of the kids.  You do not see an issue with the thefts.  (since it is just a Walmart)  You give refuge to this conduct.

I suppose there is hope since after all your equivocations and excuses...

All that said, it was a stupid thing to do regardless of race

Awesome...

[Garden guy]

This is simply an example of what our local parents are doing with their children.   Shouldn't there be some legal responsibility?...what might happen if every parent of every under aged child involved be arrested every time the child gets in trouble? This also tells us why we have dismal schools....stupid kids come from stupid parents...sounds mean but its true.

Quite possibly the worst idea I've ever heard. As many lawyers, doctors, CEO's, etc would be arrested as would lower class people. In fact, a recent Florida Governor would have been arrested while in office.

Exactly, ANYONE that has had the distinct displeasure of raising a teenager can attest to the FACT that kids do STUPID things, and good kids often do STUPID and even occasionally DEADLY things. It's possible through DNA, bad luck, or just plain meanness that a excellent parents have kiddies in prison, in gangs, or in cemeteries. When little Johnny vanishes for the night, there is not a damn thing mom and dad can do to 'fix' whatever jam he might come across.

If these parents were actually responsible for their children they'd be doin time and that child would probably never do it again after a few good ass whippings.....its amazing what parents are letting their babies get away with...this to me this  is simply telling us what our community is made of....

[buckethead]

As a participating member of this particular flash nob, I don't see what the big deal is....

just blowing off a little steam.

[Ocklawaha]

If it makes you feel any better I-10, here are a couple of photos of 'White Boys' acting up.


White Boys


White Men


A 'REAL' smash mob, Tanks-of-the-1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler inKharkov March 1943.

[Dog Walker]

To misquote Ms. Stein, " A mob is a mob is a mob".  To quote Heinlein, " ...a beast with 100 bellies and no brain."

[Know Growth]

you know......idyllic.

http://digitalcollections.fiu.edu/tequesta/files/1982/82_1_04.pdf

From its earliest days as a tourist playground, Miami and Miami Beach attracted gamblers, bookies, and gangsters.

Racketeering became even more widespread in the post-war era, and in 1955 the Miami Heraldcalled the city the nation's leading gangster haven. When mobsters began buying up swanky Miami Beach hotels in the 1960s,

Newsweek labeled the place "Mob Town, U.S.A."22 In the 1970s, a new kind of crime wave swept metropolitan Miami - illegal drug smuggling, mostly organized by gangs of Columbian "cocaine cowboys."

Like much legitimate business, smuggled cocaine, marijuana, and quaaludes come to Miami by sea and air from Latin America and the Caribbean; like legitimate business profits, much of the drug money, properly laundered, finds its way into Miami banks, real estate, and business operations. "Illegal money is the major factor in the current boom in south Florida," says real estate man Kimball.

Almost half of all Miami real estate sales to offshore corpora- tions or foreign investors, Kimball contends, are paid for with laundered "narcobucks." At least four Miami banks, law enforcement authorities say, are actually owned by drug smugglers. Federal officials estimate that at least 28 billion dollars worth of illegal drugs come into the United States through south Florida each year.

North Miami's Thomas Sasso Pool was named after a family friend.
Mr.Sasso eventually tangled up in wrong doing.

Carl Hiaasen grew up nearby,over the county line.

In high school for a project I wanted to track ownersip info,patterns on particular parcels.....my instructor advised against it.

The neighborhood and many other elements were in fact "Idyllic",now not so.

Miami's lost inocence is appealing,and worth having lived through.I am glad I grew up there rather than here.

Carl Hiassen,in his book "Kick Ass",a compilation of some of his hardest hitting editorials,tied some of it together for me in the piece "Jacksonville's Millionth Mania". (hard copy edition)

Idyllic

[I-10east]

Thanks for the predictable remarks Ock.... Did I ever say that blacks were the only ones committing crimes? No, but yall love twisting my words. I was talking specifically about in the black community, which I hold to a high standard (hopefully that's okay) but as alot of MJers do, yall always tilt the subject and talk about the crime in the population of the entire world, like after the Boston Vancouver Stanley Cup, soccer hooligan fights, the Nazi rise with Hitler etc, etc, etc. Just like if I was to talk about a problem in another city, than someone would come back with the obligatory predictable Jax-diss type comment "Well atleast they have blah blah blah park, and a vibrant entertainment district." How predictable. Using the Aurora shooting is pretty low as an example Stephen, and don't get me wrong, I'm not one of these uptight easily offended type people either; You could have simply made an Aurora movie tragedy thread, and moved on. I won't say anything about crime in the black community again on MJ; I thought that yall were big boys that could handle a lil' outspoken, unbiased, and un-PC chat for a little bit, but the PC monster rears it's ugly head.