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You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Racial Justice / This Week In Blackness / Nine Dead From Motorcycle Gang Shootout Which CNN Calls A ‘Brouhaha’

Nine Dead From Motorcycle Gang Shootout Which CNN Calls A ‘Brouhaha’

by Elon James White|  May 19, 20151:46 pm| 30 Comments

This post is in: This Week In Blackness

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Rival motorcycle gangs opened fire in a parking lot in Waco, Texas, on Sunday. Nine have died, 18 were wounded, and 170 have been arrested and will be charged with engaging in organized crime linked to capital murder. What’s truly amazing is how the media has framed the incident.  CNN called it a “brouhaha” while the NYT called it a “confrontation.”

Of course, the deadly shootout in Texas was exactly that: A shootout. The rival gangs were not engaged in a demonstration or protest and they were predominantly white, which means that — despite the fact that dozens of people engaged in acts of obscene violence — they did not “riot,” as far as much of the media is concerned. “Riots” are reserved for communities of color in protest, whether they organize violently or not, and the “thuggishness” of those involved is debatable. That doesn’t seem to be the case in Texas.

Nine people dead and that’s a brouhaha? I’d love to know what CNN defines as a tussle.

Team Blackness also discussed the demilitarization of the police, a woman who got jail time for raping a man, and a really inappropriate way that one Boston couple choose to wait for the train.

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Reader Interactions

30Comments

  1. 1.

    Heliopause

    May 19, 2015 at 3:16 pm

    I was leaning toward “zany hijinks” myself.

  2. 2.

    bobbo

    May 19, 2015 at 3:21 pm

    Kerfuffle.

  3. 3.

    Pogonip

    May 19, 2015 at 3:25 pm

    Spirited debate!

  4. 4.

    justawriter

    May 19, 2015 at 3:29 pm

    It was just Sam Peckinpah’s Salad Days. Someone said, “I say, anyone for tennis?”

  5. 5.

    Roger Moore

    May 19, 2015 at 3:37 pm

    The LA Times is calling it a “gang battle”, which seems reasonably accurate and to the point. This wasn’t a riot, which suggests an unruly crowd engaged in random destruction, with violence to others as only part of incidental to the wanton destruction. This was a battle or shootout, where injuring people was the primary objective. So I would suggest that the people calling it a gang fight, shootout, battle, or something similar are closer to correct than ones calling it a riot. This wasn’t a riot; it was a deadly fight between rival criminal gangs.

  6. 6.

    Mandalay

    May 19, 2015 at 3:41 pm

    One of the finest tweets I have ever seen, contrasting police conduct at Waco and Ferguson.

  7. 7.

    Citizen_X

    May 19, 2015 at 3:42 pm

    I’ve seen people on Facebook saying–about the gang war THAT KILLED NINE PEOPLE–that “at least they didn’t think trash other people’s property” like those people in Baltimore!

  8. 8.

    Roger Moore

    May 19, 2015 at 3:46 pm

    @Citizen_X:

    “at least they didn’t think trash other people’s property”

    Except for putting bullet holes in their cars and businesses.

  9. 9.

    Mike in NC

    May 19, 2015 at 3:47 pm

    The bikers were armed with knives, clubs, chains, brass knuckles, and handguns. No Skittles were involved.

  10. 10.

    bluefoot

    May 19, 2015 at 3:48 pm

    There is also the contrast that in Baltimore, the (black) gangs were united in calling for peaceful protests, and in Texas the (white) gangs are the ones shooting. Where are the leaders in the white community decrying the inherent violence of their race?

  11. 11.

    Mandalay

    May 19, 2015 at 3:53 pm

    Hmmm, no mention of these terms anywhere in the media reports:
    – riot: “A violent disturbance of the peace by a crowd”
    – thug: “A violent person, especially a criminal”

    So why isn’t “Deaths follow Waco riot by thugs” a headline? Salon looked at the descriptions used for what happened at Waco.

    CNN:
    melee
    ruckus
    fracas
    brawl
    fistfight
    brouhaha
    “issues”
    trouble
    chaos

    New York Times:
    shootout
    chaos
    fight
    confrontation
    problems

    Waco Tribune:
    shootout
    altercation
    biker gang shooting
    incident
    “What happened here today” (Police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton)
    “gun fights” (Swanton)
    melee (Swanton)
    scuffles and disturbances (on the issue of related violence around the city)
    very dangerous, hostile criminal biker gangs (Swanton)
    something akin to a war zone

    KWTX:
    turned a local restaurant into a shooting gallery
    a rival motorcycle gang fight
    melee
    absolute chaos (Swanton)
    a situation like happened Sunday afternoon

    No riot. No thugs. Our liberal media at work, or our racist media at work?

  12. 12.

    Brachiator

    May 19, 2015 at 3:57 pm

    @Mandalay:

    No riot. No thugs. Our liberal media at work, or our racist media at work?

    Yes.

  13. 13.

    Mandalay

    May 19, 2015 at 4:02 pm

    Here is an excellent redefinition of the word thug: “a black guy who makes white folks a little more uncomfortable than they prefer”.

  14. 14.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    May 19, 2015 at 4:06 pm

    Oh my, those crazy white biker kids with their sigils and such. What mischief have they gotten into now?

  15. 15.

    Mandalay

    May 19, 2015 at 4:09 pm

    I do hope that all that touching brotherly love and respect on display between the white cops and the white bikers at Waco doesn’t dissipate when they announce how many cop bullets are in the nine biker corpses.

  16. 16.

    Kathleen

    May 19, 2015 at 4:18 pm

    Well, the Today Show chryon yesterday referred to it as a “Biker Gang Clash”. Weren’t they a big haired metal band in the 80’s?

  17. 17.

    the Conster

    May 19, 2015 at 4:21 pm

    It was all about a Texas bottom rocker. Yes, I had to google it too. That’s worth dying for, instead of you know, systemic oppression of all of your rights.

  18. 18.

    Mnemosyne (iPhone)

    May 19, 2015 at 4:23 pm

    @Roger Moore:

    Silly boy. Only black and Latino criminals are organized into “gangs.” Violent (mostly white) bikers who deal drugs are merely business associates.

  19. 19.

    the Conster

    May 19, 2015 at 4:26 pm

    @Mnemosyne (iPhone):

    White bikers aren’t a gang, they’re a club.

  20. 20.

    MaxUtil

    May 19, 2015 at 4:32 pm

    @Pogonip: They were “teaching the controversy”!

  21. 21.

    Poopyman

    May 19, 2015 at 4:48 pm

    @Mandalay: I saw around 2:30 that one of the TVs here at work had CNN on, and the chyron had (paraphrasing) “Why weren’t the Waco bikers called ‘thugs’?” Anybody want to summarize what went down there? There was no sound and I couldn’t hang around.

  22. 22.

    ruemara

    May 19, 2015 at 5:47 pm

    I’m sorry, but the whole saga of Bevel commercials on TWiB just kills me. In a non-cop way.

  23. 23.

    Tree With Water

    May 19, 2015 at 5:58 pm

    Come to think of it, there’s no term synonymous with ‘good old boys’ that Americans invoke to describe a group of black American males, is there?

  24. 24.

    Cacti

    May 19, 2015 at 6:09 pm

    Richard Sherman was called a thug by more media outlets than the members of the two motorcycle gangs.

    Seems like he wasn’t too far off when he said “thug” was just a socially acceptable substitute for the N-word.

  25. 25.

    inkadu

    May 19, 2015 at 7:21 pm

    @Roger Moore: Yeah. This one has me pinching the bridge of my nose too.

  26. 26.

    coin operated

    May 19, 2015 at 9:20 pm

    @Cacti: I remember that. Arguably the best cornerback in the game at the time, and he was reduced to ‘thug’ status. He was right, in my opinion.

  27. 27.

    Tree With Water

    May 19, 2015 at 11:06 pm

    Team Blackness: The NY Times has an interesting story up about the 50th anniversary of the Ali-Liston fight. Not knowing much about the guy, I googled Liston’s name and ran across this Q & A. I’d never heard it before, but won’t soon forget it (Liston was born and raised in the deep South). I thought you might appreciate it:

    “..The NAACP had urged Patterson not to fight Liston, fearing that a Liston victory would hurt the civil rights movement… Many African-Americans disdained Liston. Asked by a young white reporter why he wasn’t fighting for freedom in the South, Liston deadpanned, “I ain’t got no dog-proof ass.”

  28. 28.

    Ted Mills

    May 20, 2015 at 2:57 am

    I heard a similar tone this afternoon on KCRW/NPR. Maybe it was Lakshmi Singh? Anyway, the way she read the report was almost like a soft news item, you could hear the smile in her voice. So strange.

  29. 29.

    bjacques

    May 20, 2015 at 6:44 am

    A *brouhaha*?

    Ha ha ha ha!

  30. 30.

    grondo

    May 20, 2015 at 7:13 pm

    As stupid as CNN et al are (and GAWD are they stupid) it is equally stupid to call a biker gang war/shootout a “riot”. A riot is a spontaneous disturbance by a mob of random people who have no agenda or goal. This was a gang turf war, among biker gangs shooting it out over their drug rivalry. However, the term “thug” certainly fits well.

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