Life of an inner city security guard

Darren Long, a security guard at an inner city Atlanta mall, has quite a job. He keeps a video camera—apparently strapped to his chest to leave his hands free—to tape his confrontations with the denizens. In this tape, posted at The Blaze, he is keeping misbehaving toddlers from entering the mall, the mother becomes increasingly abusive and finally starts hitting him, at which point he tases her and she falls to the ground. The headline says that the toddlers were hurling “gay” insults at Long, but I couldn’t make that out.

Look at the people in this mall, and then remind me once again: in what sense are they members of the same society as us, to whom we owe anything? In what sense are they even human beings? (Don’t pretend to be shocked at my question. I am not saying that they are not human beings; I am asking in what sense are they—in their present state—human beings.) And how can this vast demi-human population, spread throughout the inner cities of America in what we might call the Underclass Archipelago, be raised to the level of the human, so that they become a functioning part of human society, instead of a wasting disease within it?

The answer, if there be an answer, does not lie within liberalism. Indeed, the answer does not lie within the Western world as presently constituted.

- end of initial entry -

William in Texas writes:

This looks like it is taking place in deepest, darkest Africa. I am assuming that the black security guard pictured at the top is the one in question. If you will notice on the video he cannot help but be drawn into the verbal battle with this black so called “woman.” As you and others have pointed out, yelling, screaming, preening, and dancing about is the way blacks and Africans communicate and try to assert their dominance. The “woman,” and the security guard, and, eventually, the children partake in this ritual. You can clearly hear one of the children yelling, “That’s why you gay,” over and over. The black man who enters toward the end never says he is the children’s father, just that they are his “babies.”

This video is so disturbing on so many levels. I don’t know what part of Atlanta this is, but can you imagine being a tourist and stumbling into this nightmare? CNN, World of Coke, the Olympic Park, and several other tourist sites are all in downtown Atlanta, so tourists better not take a wrong turn.

LA replies:

Africans would not be so uncontrolled. This is not a picture of Africa, but of the unique pathology of blacks in the welfare-state West.

Scott M. writes:

There is something else that needs to be pointed out. The expression, “Back it up,” in Negro parlance, can be taken to mean “Let’s see if you can engage in the necessary violent confrontation that your words provoke, and emerge with your carcass intact” (as in “back up [defend] yo’ s—t!”). The security guard repeats this challenge over and over again, in that persevering manner peculiar to blacks, but I do not think he means “back up.” I suspect that he is as exhilarated by the possibility of “vi-lence” as any other garden variety urban black.

Jeremy L. writes:

It struck me as I was viewing the video that the culture of black America—at least of ghetto black America—is often worse than that of the African tribes from whence they came. [LA replies: Of course!] While tribal culture is often savage in certain aspects—witness female genital mutilation—it is also orderly. There is a hierarchy of responsibility within a tribe, and the members conform to tribal rules. They are punished by the tribe if they violate those rules.

Contrast this with the example of black America we witnessed in that video, no more than stupid, obnoxious shouting. It was not only on the part of the offending female. People were milling about the security guard threateningly, and even the kids were menacing.

This is anti-civilization, this is anarchy, practiced by those with no sense of personal responsibility, or even of personhood.

LA replies:

No sense of personhood. That’s an insightful and original point. And—to return to the question I asked at the beginning of the entry—is not a sense of personhood an essential attribute of the human?

LA continues:

Indeed, I think Jeremy’s point is one of the most original ever made at VFR. It strikes me as a key articulation of the nature of the underclass black psyche. For example, when blacks instantaneously form into a running mob chasing after a quarry, as in that amateur football game when an entire team and their coaches began chasing after the referee and brought him down; when they swarm over a fallen and unconscious victim; when they fire guns aimlessly in the midst of crowds, killing and paralyzing innocent bystanders; when they cold-cock a white pedestrian and kick him repeately in the head; when they deface and disfigure their white victim, smashing the bones of his face as if to destroy him as a human being; when they confront authority figures with increasingly mindless provocation, as the woman is this video does, and then complain of being victimized when the authority figure defends himself or arrests them, what is the common element in these sorts of behaviors? It is that they have no sense of personhood, their own or other persons’. The behavior has been frequently described as mindless, purposeless violence. But the lack of a sense of personhood somehow gets closer to the core of these phenomena.

Matthew H. writes:

You write, “Africans would not be so uncontrolled. This is not a picture of Africa, but of the unique pathology of blacks in the welfare-state West.”
I am reminded of an African family I know. The father is attending seminary here and plans to go back to Nigeria to assume church duties. They have four boys. One day the father mentioned that their oldest child, a teenage girl, was sent back to Nigeria to live with relatives. Why? The moral climate in the U.S. is too bad.

Dean Ericson writes:

I lived in Rwanda for three years, 2006-‘09, on business. I got around. I never saw Africans acting like this. They were remarkably orderly and polite. (Aside from the odd genocide, but at the time I saw them they were at their best under excellent leadership.) They wouldn’t put up with behavior like this. These American blacks have been “liberated” by liberalism. Liberalism brings out the worst in everyone (including whites). These are blacks at their worst: deliberately ruined by leftists and liberals so as to be their pawns and foot soldiers in their war against God and civilization.

Jeremy L. writes:

I was sitting in a coffee shop, writing that email to you, and I very nearly didn’t include that last prepositional phrase about personhood. My PC-bred fears, perhaps. But I included it, because it struck me as true. (Civilized) people, whether from Europe, Africa, Asia, etc., don’t act like that. There is enough respect for the soul that informs the other’s body that we treat our fellow human beings with respect, even when we disagree with them.

Indeed, most sub-human mammals seem to have this sense of respect. At least, they follow the rules of their respective mammalian societies. The same goes for birds. Birds and mammals have social structures to which their members adhere. It is not until you get down to to the level of fish or lower (e.g., sharks in a feeding frenzy) that this sense of mutual respect for the other’s being disappears.

Another class of people came to me right now that lack this basic quality that seems to be shared amongst so many, those with Antisocial Personality Disorder. I forget what the classical term for it is, but the symptom is a lack of the ability to understand or care about the fact that you are causing others pain. Often you enjoy it. Civilized society normally administers medications to these people in a hospital.

LA replies:

Your idea about animals is also original. Of course, various exceptions and qualifications would have to be added, but I think there’s something to it.

February 2

Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:

I read your post on the African black/American black comparison with great interest.

I can always (almost) tell the difference between a Canadian (American) black and one from Africa. There is a civility and pleasantness that African blacks have. I am wary to start anything with Canadian blacks, and even asking for simple directions has to be done cautiously.

I bumped/pushed - accidentally - into a black woman in a store once, and she almost started to hit me. I had to apologize quickly to avoid problems.

I also avoid walking besides or close to groups of blacks. They are often so loud and rambunctious and I never know when the mood will turn.

Having said that, there is something distinctly different about Ethiopians. It is the only group from Africa which hasn’t been pulled into the black culture, and is forming something quite separate. For example, here in Toronto, a huge and expensive “cathedral” style Ethiopian Orthodox Church was just completed, funded entirely by the Ethiopian community (as far as I know, and not some multi-culti ethnic government fund). Even the second and third generation is forming its own identity.

It is sad, though, because it is somewhat of an island. I keep saying that Ethiopians should begin the (painful) exodus back to Ethiopia. Living in the West isn’t working out for them. I would say the same about other Africans, since I think their chldren will actually change, and merge with tbe black culture, so it would be far worse for them here.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 01, 2013 10:33 AM | Send