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Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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October 15, 2005
Rioters Make Nazis Look Good in Toledo, Ohio
An aborted attempt at a march in Toledo, Ohio on October 15th, 2005 by about 15 people identifying themselves as "America’s Nazi Party" ended up with riots and looting and arson by the locals. TOLEDO BLADE STORY
Mayor Jack Ford declared a state of emergency this afternoon following a violent uprising in North Toledo that erupted following an aborted march by a group of Nazis.
He issued a citywide curfew starting at 8 p.m. tonight, tomorrow, and possibly Monday.
Mr. Ford said those protesting were mainly male gang members in their 20s. He said the protests were not triggered by race relations but by gang members with grievances.
"We went to talk to them. Most of them were gang members in full colors," the mayor said. "Their anger was based on some long-standing things but also that we had allowed the [Nazi] walk to occur in the first place."
North Toledo descended into chaos for several hours this afternoon after angry crowds who turned out to protest a planned march by a small group of National Socialist Movement calling themselves "America’s Nazi Party" erupted into violence.
A mob of at least 500 people threw bricks and rocks at police and vehicles, looted a bar at Central and Mulberry and started it on fire, and overturned a car at a North Toledo gas station and burned it.
There were reports of minor injuries to police and numerous arrests.
You've really got to be a major jackass to make self-described Nazis start to look good, but these Toledo residents have managed to do it. Rioting is just far, far worse than a few idiots with swastikas talking some trash. As riots unfolded before the Nazis even started, the city cancelled their march for them, and sent them packing. They apparently left peacefully and without any incident on their part.
Before sending in police in force to make arrests at around 3:30 p.m., Mayor Ford and Toledo Fire Department chief Mike Bell approached the mob and attempted to negotiate a compromise. But as they talked, and as the crowd yelled and screamed at them, looters broke into the bar at Central and Mulberry and began taking merchandise.
Mr. Bell eventually began walking back toward a large group of police shaking his head.
"No more negotiating," he said. "We’re done. They just set a building on fire."
Holy negative stereotypes, Batman!
Not to put too fine a point on this, but the local Negroes here did about a thousand times more to make their point for them than some handful of Nazi idiots could ever possibly have done. If they had simply ignored them, these dozen odd schmucks with police escort would have simply looked like pathetic museum pieces. Or if the locals unstrategically but understandably had lined the streets and cussed the Nazis, the Nazis would have still just looked like fools.
But the first sign of someone merely even planning to say things they didn't like became an excuse to go burning and looting. What? This is just exactly the kind of behavior that Nazis or Klansmen would accuse them of.
It's unfortunate and unfair that the behavior of a few hundred folk will be taken as a reflection on other black folk who had nothing to do with this, but you'd be asking the near impossible to expect everyone to not notice nonsense like this.
We struggle to be colorblind, but pattern recognition is basic to human psychology. Mayor Ford announcing the official line that we're pretending this is not race related does not change the facts. It's not white guys from the suburbs or even my backwards cracker neighbors that go burning and looting at the drop of a hat. That such patterns end up coloring the perceptions of many people who do not actually conform to those negative stereotypes is nearly impossible to avoid. Putting it very gently, foolishness like this doesn't help.
The Nazis didn't NEED to march in Toledo. The locals made their argument for them.
posted by Al at 10/15/2005 09:28:00 PM
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