I agree it’s not a new phenomenon.
Why there’s an uptick just now of specifically black teens fighting and rioting in malls may be a combination of:
1: A trickle-down effect from the recent protests and riots in response to police violence.
2: Malls because, it’s winter and cold in many regions. Malls are warm places to congregate and hang out.
3: Social media - just about every teenager has a cell phone now.
The “riots” in the UK of 2011 were quite similar to those decribed in this thread.
You can add a brawl in Chicago that occurred at what is known as the Rock and Roll McDonalds last night. The suspects? No surprises here.
Yeah, this is not really “new”, it had been quiet a while on that front but seems to be cycling to a new spike. FWIW I’d also wonder about the penomenon of becoming aware and reporting as a coherent phenomenon, what had been previously viewed in isolation. Meaning: maybe the uptick had already been going on a while but it would have been one “mall riot” in City X, State A, that’s their local news, hardly reported elsewhere; one “mall brawl” in Suburb Y, State B, that’s their local news, mostly ignored elsewhere; one teen mob vandalism/theft spree in Town Z, State C, that’s their local news, hardly reported elsewhere; rinse, repeat – until at some point *someone *is looking up reports of rioting in general and right there pops up evidence of a cluster of “mall riots”, and *now *it’s sudden and unexpected.
The way the Mall replaced the urban public square or shopping district as “place to gather” does make this sort of activity trickier to manage in that the enclosed, compact, customer-friendly nature of the Mall may actually help the disorderly. Unlike downtown, where innocent bystanders or the weaker of the confronted factions can just scatter and run in all directions, or the police can just drive right up to where the problem is and sweep the street, at the Mall you’re likely to be several hundred feet down a hallway from the nearest door to the parking lot.
Maybe they’re just tring to project the image that they’re tough. “A hundred fifty people? That’s nuthin’. Ya should have seen the one when your mother and I were in high school.”
Reason 142 why I shop Amazon.
And please shop Prime ------- I need the work.
Where are you?
:eek:
I notice that in these posts everybody is tap dancing around the fact that these mobs of thugs are invariably blacks, terrorizing whites.
I also note that nobody has raised the issue of “Polar Bear Hunting” in which groups of blacks attack random whites on the streets with the objective of beating them insensible.
It has been said that in this country we need a discussion on race. Clearly, that is not going to happen here.
There were similar flash mobs a few years back and then it either cooled down or the media got sick of it. I’m guessing it feeds off itself via social media, kids in one area organize one and then others see video and pics and get the idea and it spreads like that.
If anyone wonders what the comments about world star are about on the newsites:
tell us why it matters.
These groups are being drawn from the surrounding area obviously, no one is flying in for a flash mob. So you get some mostly black high schools where a call for one of these go out, at least one is suggested to be a brawl between rival schools, I’m not surprised the crowd isn’t diverse.
(Not defending it)
Tell me about it! I live in a racially (not a true thing, I know…) mixed area south of chi-town, and this very thing has happened to me!!
Just kidding. It’s never happened to me. It’s never happened to anyone I know. I’ve never even heard of it before.
Hmm. But damn them blacks anyway. :rolleyes:
Polar Iceman: Did you just employ sarcasm that literally went over my head? Figuratively? I’ll accept that, even. 
Riots are not contained to one building, and they last longer than any of these “riots.”
I’m just hoping and praying that most of those people aren’t actually from Pittsburgh. :smack:
When a black thug attacks a white person, the President of the USA expresses his admiration, and tells the world that the thug could have been his son.
When a black thug attacks a policeman, we get riots in the streets.
When a black thug resists arrest, we have riots in the streets.
When gangs of black thugs disrupt public events and attack the white attendees, we hear crickets.
When black thugs attack random whites on the streets, we hear crickets.
When black thugs cause mayhem and criminal damage in shopping malls, we hear crickets.
Since black thugs have become protected species, we get their apologists asking “why does it matter”?
That’s why it matters.
Which President of the USA did this when which black “thug” (your word) attacked which white person?
Obama; Trayvon Martin; George Zimmerman.
Moderator Action
This thread has strayed pretty far from the factual bounds of GQ. Since it has also been derailed pretty far away from its original topic, I think it is best to close this, as trying to get it back on track probably isn’t possible at this point.
Polar Iceman, if you wish to discuss or debate racism, please do so in a more appropriate forum, either GD or the Pit based on the nature of your comments here. The General Questions forum is for questions of a factual nature.
Thread closed.