Yesterday, in Waco, Texas, nearly 200 people were involved in a fight and shoot-out that erupted in a Hooters-style restaurant, Twin Peaks, spilled into a parking lot of a shopping plaza, and, at the end, left 9 people dead and 18 wounded. It is believed that all the belligerents are members of well-known biker gangs. The police, who were aware of and concerned about the gathering beforehand, and exchanged gunfire with the gang members when shit hit the fan, collected "close to 100 guns" from the crime scene, which was a battlefield of bullet holes, bullet cases, blood, gore, and corpses. It is reported that the 170 arrested people will be or have already been charged.
Not long after the shooting hit the web, many were quick to spot what they saw as inconsistencies between how the police and the press handled this deadly shoot-out, which was perceived as involving white bikers, and the recent riots in Baltimore, which involved many black males. Why weren't the cops in riot gear? Why wasn't the National Guard called in? Why didn't the press call the bikers "thugs"? Why was relatively mild language ("biker brawl") used to describe the explosion of violence that endangered the lives of many citizens and police officers? In fact, there is even a story that the bikers were ordered to shoot anyone in a uniform.
This line of argument is not without its problems, the main of which is judging by the bikers who have so far been charged, a lot are Hispanic. So the racial situation is a little more complicated than it may first appear.
However, if you wade through the flood of tweets connected with the hashtag #Waco, you will find some on the right of the political spectrum arguing that the fine white people of Waco did not riot (destroy property) after the shooting. They did not, in short, identify with the criminals but with law and order. The problem with this logic is that it assumes that black people cannot distinguish between criminals and law-abiding citizens, between right and wrong. Meaning their grievances are not only unjustified but their moral compass is totally broken.
But let's think about this for a moment: Which black community in Washington or the United States rioted, for example, after Maurice Clemmons—a black man who murdered four police officers near Tacoma—was killed by the police in South Seattle in 2009? Also, were any of the black males recently killed by the police armed? Or shooting at other black males? No, they were not. One can't compare Eric Garner with the bikers. He was not gangbanging in broad daylight when the police piled on him and choked him to death.
What is at issue here is this: Many black Americans believe, with good reason, that they are exposed to police aggression not because they are criminals but because of the color of their skin. Their argument is not that there are no violent criminals in their communities—of course there are. What they see as a serious problem is that the police often fail to discriminate between noncriminals, minor criminals, and violent criminals. All are met with the same force.
