Wings, Bikers, Gangs, Waco

Waco coverage shows double standard on race - CNN.com:

As a member of a couple of Gold Wing forums on the net, I see all sorts of posts to the effect of "Harley riders give motorcycling a bad name", "No Gold Wings were involved in the making of this riot" etc.

It is human  nature to want to feel superior, and when given the chance, we all have a tendency to take it.

The operative term in Waco, as in a lot of black on black violence is GANG. Neither Harleys or guns are causes of violence. Defining groups with symbols, colors, turf, handshakes, etc and then having conflicts arise does tend to cause violence.

The linked article thinks that focusing on the "biker" aspect of the participants and not mentioning race is a "double standard". Maybe. I tend to think that if we have a non-racial grouping for a riot, as in  "student", "union", "xxx team fans", etc, we use that rather than race.

Otherwise, in this country with segregated areas of cities "black" or "hispanic" are used. When the pictures of the riots show 100% black people, it seems disingenuous to say "generic people rioted". Indeed, in Baltimore and Ferguson, the people rioting were saying they were rioting BECAUSE of "treatment of BLACK people" -- their self identified race was the purpose of the riot.

The writer of the linked article meets another stereotype -- the liberal writer so far from reality they would need a telescope just to see a tiny bit of it's light.

So why is it that in cases such as Michael Brown and Freddie Gray -- and so many others — race is made central to the story, even in instances where the black and brown people involved are victims of police violence?

Uh, because the entire discussion is about the race of the "victim"???

Waco has nothing to do with race, and it only has to do with "biker" because this particular set of Gangs are BIKER Gangs.

We all know what "Biker" means -- loud Harley, boots, dressed like a pirate, tats. It's a stereotype rigorous enough to be it's own parody. As the "1%ers" who are the kind of Biker Gang that are responsible for Waco are PROUD to say, they are the 1%! 99% of "bikers" are not bad ass gang members -- they may be tough, risk takers, etc, they are just not members of a violent biker gang.

The fact is that we LOVE stereotypes! Those Wing forums are also loaded with pictures of Wings "attacking a DQ", or overweight Wing riders at a big table "Wing riders KNOW what to do at a restaurant ... EAT!"

But then there is me -- middle of the bell shaped curve, no distinguishing features, rides both a Harley and a Wing, utterly devoid of distinguishing characteristics, doomed to comment from the ivory tower on the associations of others.

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