Update:Tiffany at Blackfeminism.org has an excellent post to elaborate of how the slang of the late 80s ended up leading to the media and police incorrectly coining the concept of wilding.
The Duke Lacrosse team rape case has really touched a nerve with me, and one of the things that bothers me most is the discrepancies between how White men’s crimes and black men’s crimes are covered in the popular media. Since it is no longer politically correct to use blatant racist language or explicitly racial terms in these cases, we have to look beyond the surface. Black men who are accused of committing crimes against Whites, especially White women, are not directly labeled “scary Black men” but everything about the way the story is told promotes the “scary out of control Black man persona.” One of the most troubling ways this is done is by the use of special terms coined in honor of Black men’s crimes or criminal involvement.
The most famous example of this is the term “wilding.” The term wilding was used to describe the attack of a White woman in Central Park in the late 1980s. Scared Whites suddenly worried that groups of young Black and Latino men would descend on innocent White women and attack them, like that has supposedly done to this woman. The term was almost exclusively used for young Black and Brown men, and as such has became synonymous with them. What is even more striking it that through DNA evidence and a confession by an imprisoned man, we later found out that this group of young men didn’t attack the Central Park jogger and in 2002 their sentences were vacated (DNA evidence confirmed that it was a lone attacker, who was a Latino man.). Why not use the term wilding to talk about what the rape survivor said happened at Duke. One of the regular commenters on my blog, Anthony, reminded me of this term, when he argued that the attack at Duke was an example of wilding. I wondered if popular media outlets will use the term wilding, or will they come up with some special code word that referred to groups of young White men who attack women (especially Black women). Probably not. When White men behave badly it is usually framed as a problem with the individual White man or the small group of White men involved, but it is almost never a collective statement about the problems with White guys in America.
Another example of this is the whole “Stop Snitching” phenomenon, which has been labeled as a huge threat to the criminal justice system. The term “Stop Snitching” has been connected with an underground video out of Baltimore. “Stop Snitchin'” has also been advertised on T-shirts that have become very popular mostly among young urban Black and Brown kids. If you watched shows like America’s Most Wanted or the nightly news, you would think the “Stop Snitchin” phenomenon is new and young Black men created it. However, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the idea of not snitchin’ has been around for a long time, way before Hip Hop and way before the T-shirts. In fact, I was watching the Abrams Report, since he has been covering the Duke case, and he kept alluding to the editorial that he was going to do at the end of the show. The editorial was about “Stop Snitchin.” My initial reaction was good somebody finally gets it. These Duke boys are living by the “Stop Snitchin” code of ethics. It’s not just poor Black and Brown people and Hip Hop artists. Well much to my chagrin Abrams didn’t even connect the Duke case to this phenomenon even though it was so blatantly obvious…the Duke lacrosse players need to start snitchin.
The trend of giving special labels to Black men’s bad behavior (or in some cases alleged bad behavior) makes it seem as if Black men invented gang rape or the code of silence that prevents snitchin. If the young wealthy White men can hide beyond their attorneys and say they are not “snitchin” on advice of counsel, the outcome is the similar…the crime is harder to solve. If a group of these White guys decide to have a party where they invite strippers and engage in wilding, the outcome is similar–another woman is sexually assaulted. Unfortunately, most people(especially White folks) in American culture don’t see these behaviors as similar. They think that one Black person’s bad behavior is somehow representative of all Black people, not the individual Black person or people involved. They think subconsciously or consciously that Black men are dangerous and White men are the innocent boys next door. So next time you hear a special lable for Black men’s bad behavior. Please think twice.
PS–And just as a side note, the attorney for the Duke lacrosse players needs to think twice before he decides to describe the rush to judgment of these young men as a “lynch mob mentality.” Lynch mobs didn’t kill White men who were accused of sexually assaulting Black women. Read your history.
Also posted at Rachel’s Tavern
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Point taken, but-
“If the young wealthy White men can hide beyond their attorneys and say they are not “snitchin” on advice of counsel, the outcome is the similar…”
I don’t think you understand thet nature of the right not to self incriminate and atty/ client priviledge, which are quite separate from snitching. Snitching is to incriminate other people, which attorneys often advise their clients to do after negotiating with prosecutors. No one has a right, with or without an attorney, to withhold incriminating information about a crime involving other people.
And that is why they have tried to get DNA tests for 46 of these men because they did not fully cooperate with the police, and my point is once they have an attorney it is going to be even more likely that they will not come forward anytime soon.
I had not heard of this “Stop Snitchin” fad before – maybe its an East Coast thing – but unfortunately mentality behind it pervades EVERY institution in society from top to bottom. Whitehouse administrations, police departments, political organizations, churches, criminal gangs, corporations, and even charities are all filled with people who feel they need to protect the intitution’s image. Skeptics of claims of massive cover-ups often state that such cover-ups would be impossible to organize, but that misses the point – you don’t have to ORGANIZE a cover-up, it will occur on its own, and sociopaths within organizations can count on that. Eliminating the idea that the code of silence is a virtue would help the powerless more than the powerful, as the powerful seem just as afraid of sunshine as the powerless and have more to lose, but I can understand why some of the powerless might refuse to unilaterally disarm.
I don’t do criminal law, but I would think that an attorney representing a team member who knew something but was not dirrectly involved should strongly advise his client to tell everything he knows, after the attorney does a little negotiation with the DA, in order to avoid any charges of being an accomplice either durring or after the fact. Esspecially if the only thing your client could be charged with is being an accomplice after the fact. How could you be an accomplice after the fact if you go to the cops before the perpetrators flee the jurisdiction? Is there something I am missing?
Because the “wilding” terminology was inappropriately used to characterize the central park rape case it should also be used in this instance. In other words, commit two wrongs to make it right?
Press coverage at the time – which was breathless and full of all sorts of crap – intimated the term “wilding” came from the suspects. The definition was made more potent by the implication that it was an established term for an established behavior on the other side of the race- and culture-barriers from the white mainstream media. This made it seem like a threat that could be applied to women anywhere. I’m not saying the coverage made sense, because it did not. I’m saying this is how it was represented.
Also: I was raised in a culture where you don’t tell on other people. They come clean or they don’t. It’s on them. Maybe you leave something where someone who understands evidence will find it but you absolutely don’t rat anyone out. And the funny thing is the first place I ever saw that articulated was on Cheers. Maybe in 1982?
I’m not disagreeing that this rape investigation is being handled with all the genius and sensitivity of a cattle rampage, but what we’re seeing in the news itself is the ham-handed version of “boys will be boys” – so long as those boys are white and middle-class. I say this sadly: there’s nothing new about that, either.
decon, that’s not the point. The point is that we should not assign any special term based on the race of the perpetrators. I am not advocating for the use of the term wilding to describe gang rapes. I just think the racial double speak needs to be removed–if they want to call it wilding, gang rape, group sexual assault, or whatever else they can come up with.
To make me point clearer I’l add a question mark to the title.
I thought it was only wilding if it was out in the wild, where the perpetrators go out looking for a victim. If it’s inside, then it’s a gang-rape. And it’s not like the media just made the word up—didn’t one of the suspects use it to describe their own activities?
Attaching question marks is usually a good policy. Unless the question is rhetorical, a question mark implies that you don’t know the answer. But you do ask: “Why not use the term wilding to talk about what the rape survivor said happened at Duke. ” I would say that a very good reason not to use the term “wilding” to characterize this sequence of events is that we don’t yet have very much information about what really happened.
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“And that is why they have tried to get DNA tests for 46 of these men because they did not fully cooperate with the police, and my point is once they have an attorney it is going to be even more likely that they will not come forward anytime soon. ”
Defense attorneys are quite often huge advocates of snitching, since cooperation with the goverment lowers sentences and gets charges reduced. Suspects who are reluctant to come forward on attorney’s advice are doing it in order not to incriminate themselves, since no defense attorney gives a flying fig about his client’s co-defendants. I know I’m focusing on something that’s not quite the point here, but I just want it to be clear that the no-snitching thing doesn’t include anything to do with defense attorneys or one’s ability to get one. If anything, a group of co-defendants with lawyers (although ALL defendants have a right to a lawyer, poor or not) is more likely to snitch, since their attorneys will be busy hammering out agreements to do so.
This is really interesting and I really like the way you have built this comparison. Thanks for expanding on this view of the situation.
Additionally, I want to point out that something seems to be getting confused in all this discussion about what to tell, and when.
In my opinion the obvious thing to do if you have information about a crime is Tell The Police. Straightaway. Do not pass go. And all that.
It’s nothing to do with cutting deals between attorneys and DA’s. It’s nothing to do with loyalty to this or that group. Not to get out of possible sentencing or any other reason. It’s about doing what’s right.
it’s simply the right thing to do. I’m amazed at how loyalty comes before what’s right, so often, it’s the default. What kind of values does that reflect?
confusing what’s comfortable, with what’s true, occurs on an alarming basis.
Well, yes, Txfeminist, that may be what white people who know about a crime should do, but as a general rule it is probably nieve. It assumes that the police can be trusted.
As sould be obvious from my above post, I fully favor ending the code of silence and exposing criminal behavior to the light of day. But the powerless in society need to be realistic about protecting themselves. True, if any of these white boys on the lacross team came forward with information, they would probably not need to worry about the DA or the police twisting their stories against them. But if any of the innocent black men in the Central Park case knew the truth, would it make sence for them to just walk into a police station and start talking? The likely result, or, if not likely, at least probable enough to be a real worry, is that the police would interrogate, jail, and maby charge them with the rape.
So what would be the right thing for my hypothetical black man in the above case to do? Go to a lawyer who can negotiate with the DA and protect her client’s interests. Except of course that he probably could not afford a criminal attorney, and you can not get one for free unless you are a suspect. So he probably stays quiet.
Which is a horrific shame, but please don’t morally censur him untill you’ve been pulled over a couple of times for Driving While Brown.
Occassionally white people are victimized by out of control and over zealous investigations. See Starr, Kenneth and Clinton, William Jefferson.
I have no way of knowing what the truth is in this case, but I’ve seen all I need to see of Mike Difong, the DA in this case. One very good reason for any competent attorney to advise their clients not to talk is Difong’s behaviour. Is he exercising all due discretion in investigating this case or is he looking for votes? Another very good reason for an attorney or PR specialist to advise the LAX players not to talk is the rush to judgement that has them already charged, tried, and convicted in many quarters.
Shoot. White folks in the south invented “no snitchin’.” How many folks you ever heard of being convicted of a lynching? Even when hundreds of people saw ’em do it, and dozens more hear ’em brag about it? Sounds like the guys on the Duke Lacrosse team are just keeping a old southern tradition alive.
well said. did you read the article in SI about it?
SI article.
Quite a few excellent points about how the words we use to describe the crime, the victim and the criminal can make the same actions appear quite different.
I’ve seen the following types of descriptions for what happened at Duke University:
An unfortunate misunderstanding that has harmed all involved.
A couple of cheap women who knew what men expect from exotic dancers.
Typical college athletes who are so arrogent that they can’t believe a woman would say no.
A hate crime.
Our descriptions also speak volumes about who we are, what we fear and what we value.
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Nifong is currently looking for votes.
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So…because the media didn’t use a term last heard in association with a case from 15 years ago, the coverage is biased?
Scared Whites suddenly worried that groups of young Black and Latino men would descend on innocent White women and attack them, like that has supposedly done to this woman.
How about, “Scared women suddenly worried that gangs of young men would descend on innocent women and attack them, like was done to this woman”?
Because right now it sounds a lot like you’re implying that the collective horror we felt at seeing the Central Park Jogger brutalized was actually manufactured hysteria in the service of demonizing black men. And I’m really disappointed to see this on one of my favorite feminist blogs.
How about, “Scared women suddenly worried that gangs of young men would descend on innocent women and attack them, like was done to this woman”? Because right now it sounds a lot like you’re implying that the collective horror we felt at seeing the Central Park Jogger brutalized was actually manufactured hysteria in the service of demonizing black men. And I’m really disappointed to see this on one of my favorite feminist blogs.
Since black men did not attack that woman, not in groups or alone – since the police coerced confessions and manufactured evidence – since every bit of the news we saw hour after hour was heavily biased, the only response to this assertion must be: yes. That is so. And if you are disappointed you’re disappointed to be disabused of your prejudiced notions.
Feminism is not only a white movement, we need to pay attention to how race and class and many other isms intersect with gender.
Tata:
I still don’t see just cause to conclude that there was actually manufactured hysteria in the service of demonizing black men. Here’s what seems more likely to me:
The police found the jogger, picked up some thugs who had been harassing and mugging other park visitors (correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think anyone contests that), and, honestly believing that they were responsible for the rape, pushed too hard for a confession. Then the media took the police report at face value and ran with it.
Of course, it was wrong for the police to pursue a confession as aggressively as they did, but that doesn’t mean that there was any deliberate conspiracy to foment hysteria against black men.
The15th:
Why does this, specifically, disappoint you? I think Alas is a great blog, but looking for some sort of “ism” under every stone and behind every tree is a regular feature here, and I don’t see that this is a particularly egregious example.
IMHO the way to break a code of silence like that is to be sincere and extremely generous in praise of whistle-blowers. like the guy who leaked the abu ghraib photos, or the guy (portrayed in “the insider”) who gave authorities information that tobacco companies were trying to hide, or the women who reported sexual harassment in military academies. those people are true hero/ines, and only when they are treated as such will more insiders ‘start snitchin’.
FWIW – the word “wilding” gets 17 hits in the NY Times search from April 1 to June 1, 1989.
In the two *years* from April 1 2004 to the present, it gets 8 hits.
It is not a phrase that is going to die of over-work, but this cite from New Orleans was interesting:
A lot more music went on in the city at night after the fairgrounds closed at 7; New Orleanians construct their own festival during vampire hours. The Soul Rebels, one of the better new brass bands, rolled into Le Bon Temps Roule, in the Uptown district, Saturday night after playing at a sorority party. They were missing two members who had early-morning jobs, and it was a casual gig. ”We just wilding out,” said the bass drummer Derrick Moss, killing time outside on the street at 3 a.m.
As to the reporting in April 1989, here is a Times excerpt:
The youths who raped and savagely beat a young investment banker as she jogged in Central Park Wednesday night were part of a loosely organized gang of 32 schoolboys whose random, motiveless assaults terrorized at least eight other people over nearly two hours, senior police investigators said yesterday.
Chief of Detectives Robert Colangelo, who said the attacks appeared unrelated to money, race, drugs or alcohol, said that some of the 20 youths brought in for questioning had told investigators that the crime spree was the product of a pastime called ”wilding.”
”It’s not a term that we in the police had heard before,” the chief said, noting that the police were unaware of any similar incidents in the park recently. ”They just said, ‘We were going wilding.’ In my mind at this point, it implies that they were going to go raise hell.”
From shortly after 8:30 P.M. until sometime after 10, the youths, mostly 14- and 15-year-olds, who broke up into smaller bands, also harassed one man; attacked another, knocking him to the ground; set upon a 52-year-old jogger, punching him; tried to assault another male jogger, in his 30’s, who outran them; threw rocks at a couple riding a tandem bicycle, who fled, and attacked two other joggers, one a man in his 40’s who was struck with a metal pipe and seriously injured. Police said they believed the same metal pipe, wrapped with tape, was later used in the assault on the investment banker.
Seven youths were charged as adults yesterday with rape, assault and attempted murder in the attack on the 28-year-old Salomon Brothers banker, who detectives said had been beaten with fists, a rock and the pipe. Chief Colangelo said that the police had obtained statements indicating that the woman had been set upon by 12 youths. He said the police hoped other arrests would follow.
Again FWIW – a number of the youths involved cooperated with the police and walked.
The problem with such an account is that it seems to rely too much on a “things just happened and nobody’s to blame” framework. I would like to humbly suggest another reading–the Central Park Jogger case is in large part the story of how various institutional actors (i.e. the police, the national media, grandstanding politicians, etc.) each contributed their share to a manifestly racist outcome: five innocent young men locked up for years until the actual rapist finally came forward.
I was only 12 or 13 years when it went down originally, and have had to piece together what I know from retrospectives and after-the-fact apologias. My biases being what they are, you’ll have to try mightily to sell me any interpretation of this travesty that portrays the principal actors as mere victims of the situation, rather than active shapers of it.
The police, for example, did not merely “push too hard” for a confession; they coerced the ones they got. The media did not merely “run with” the story; through deliberate choices of metaphor and imagery, they made the story what it was.
Take a look at this excerpt from a 1989 New York Post column, which I found in this online edition of Columbia Journalism Review:
The above is a fairly breathtaking example of fabulous discourse, not “running with the story.” While the alleged Duke rapists have been strongly condemned by many, I have yet to see ANYTHING like the phantasmagoric language used by the NYP columnist quoted above. Similarly, the lacrosse players can expect to benefit from the (no doubt well-meaning) infusions of skepticism from our libertarians and 5th Amendment fundamentalists, while many a black person has learned the folly of expecting some abstract thing called “the Constitution” to protect him from the policeman’s billy club. Hell, the fact that these white boys have found anti-lynching rhetoric to be more serviceable to their cause than most actual, historic victims of lynching speaks volumes.
And we shouldn’t forget what could end up being the biggest difference of all: the Central Park case resulted in five speedy convictions (the wrong ones, but one can’t be picky). Someone connected with the incident at Duke may yet wind up behind bars, but it will be in spite of the advantages of money, white skin, and what has thus far been a fairly nuanced response from the commentariat. Or they could walk. The difference is the same in either case.
Oh and btw, I’m a long-time lurker, first-time poster. Kudos to Amp for creating this fine blog, and to Rachel for initiating this discussion.
Thank you, Tom Maguire and Imani, for documenting what I remember seeing unfold day after day. There’s more to the story, of course. When the actual rapist was discovered through a DNA match – there was no “coming forward” – the two detectives were up to their necks in it. One of them worked as a reporter for Fox5 in NYC. I distinctly remember one day seeing him report the news and the next day, he was the news and off the air. Everyone knew the game was over.
There was nothing innocent or “it just happened” about any of it. It was like a mob moving in slow motion on national television and nothing could stop it until science intervened a dozen years later.
Regarding the Duke case. Why not wait for the DNA evidence? You’ve cited the Central Park jogger case, do you remember the
Tawana Brawley case? Two rape cases that were not exactly what they seemed at first.
How did I just know that one of the attorneys for the Lacrosse players would be a black man or woman whose job it would be to portray the alleged rape victim as a slut? I see they were smart enough to get another black person to do the dirty work.
I was watching The Abrams Report on MSNBC and saw the two lawyers ( the black man and the white female) who represented two of the Lacrosse players. The white woman acted professional, just like you would expect her to. The black guy just couldn’t get enough of making grandious predictions.
Does anyone else get the impression that the black lawyer is just a front?
Well, it’s a common enough tactic- use the Judas goat to confuse the unwary. I wonder if only whites are fooled?
They had to have at least one Black lawyer (it probably would have been better for the person to be a Black woman); it would look even worse if they didn’t.
I was just watching Fox News and they had awoman caller who said that the rape victim had it coming. And I paraphrase, “When this women showed up at a house dancing provocatively in front of these men whose hormones were all in a rage, stirring them up…..she got exactly what she deserved”.
This just ruined my entire day.
The original post didn’t address the issue of the suspects’ treatment by the police. It implied that the outcry over what was done to that woman was somehow tied to the race of her supposed attackers, that concern about rape was simply a smokescreen for racism.
The reason the Duke case (and the other gang-rape cases that have been in the news lately) have been treated in a more nuanced way is that they were not stranger rapes. The media simply treat non-stranger rapes differently. It has nothing to do with race. Look at the scorn heaped on Kobe Bryant’s accuser.
And if you are disappointed you’re disappointed to be disabused of your prejudiced notions.
I haven’t attacked you personally in any way. This is really foul.
While it is true that we do tend to treat acquaintance rape differently from stranger rape, I honestly don’t see that dichotomy being all that operative in this case. The Duke case–as well as the Central Park case before it–has been conceptualized as a GANG RAPE, and I think that this largely trumps the acquaintance/stranger issue (and not to bog us down in semantics, but two women hired to strip for a group of guys are only “acquaintances” according to the loosest possible definition, in my lexicon anyway).
So I still believe that the most relevant comparison is between the media’s treatment of black men accused of GANG RAPE versus its treatment of white men accused of GANG RAPE. And no, I don’t believe that the hysterical response to the Central Park rape was motivated by mere “concern about rape.” Again, you’re assigning a fairly passive role to the principals involved. Feminists have been laboring for decades to make “concern about rape” a normative social value that doesn’t depend on sensationalistic cases, and they can tell you how hard it’s been.
And there are all kinds of things wrong with using the Kobe Bryant case as a model. To my own admittedly jaundiced eye, that case said to me that ONLY by being a famous athlete will a black man accused of rape be given the benefit of the doubt.
I think part of the problem is that the stories involving middle class white girls just make better stories for the news media’s target demographic. If a stripper gets raped, it’s a terrible thing, but your typical middle-class suburbanite doesn’t see much relevance to his own life. But if a woman is just walking through the park minding her own business and gets beaten and raped, that’s ratings gold. If it could happen to her, it could happen to anyone—even the aforementioned suburbanite’s daughter.
There are arguably problems with the way news is reported—personally, I don’t see why murders or rapes should ever be considered national news unless they involve public figures—but just to chalk it up to racism is, I think, to oversimplify the issue, if not to miss the point altogether.
And since when are lacrosse players idolized by anyone?
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Two comments (excellent comments, btw):
First a quote from Carl Rowan: “A minority group has ‘arrived’ only when it has the right to produce some fools and scoundrels without the entire group paying for it.”
Second, I want to comment on the whole Code of Silence thing you address. It’s sick and dysfunctional, and doesn’t belong anywhere in a healthy society. That seems to me self-evident, but I guess in THIS sick and dysfunctional society, it’s something that needs to be pointed out and explained.
The most important thing about it is that it (obviously) protects the guilty. It protects the guilty wherever it’s in place. That plus keeping “the family” intact are its primary reasons for existing inthe first place.
“Keeping Family Secrets,” which is the form in which it makes its original appearance in our society, keeps sick and dysfunctional families from being exposed and getting help for the incest and/or regular child abuse and/or alcoholism and/or substance abuse going on within.
It keeps bad and absuive and corrups cops safe within the boundaries of the Code of Silence.
It keeps bad and corrupt members of the military safe from exposure and prosecution or expulsion.
It keeps bad and corrupt members of the government, or the corporation, or the university, or anyplace bad people are found, safe from exposure and prosecution or expulsion.
Nothing protects the guilty as well as the Code of Silence. It is one of Patriarchy’s most imporant tools for protecting its abusers and enforcers.
All of which is why the Code of Silence itself must be exposed — as a threat to law and order, a threat to society, a threat to decent human beings as individuals, a threat to democracy itself when found in government and business — and eradicated.
Quite simply: THERE IS NOTHING HONORABLE OR GOOD OR RIGHT ABOUT PROTECTING WRONGDOERS. There are plenty of people the world over who understand and agree with this; all the others must be made to.
I agree with the original take, but I have to say something in regards to the “Code of Silence” thing.
It is quite often the fact that some members of the “group” would come forward willingly if not under the unspoken threat of physical retalliation. This is what makes silence the norm in abusive families, etc.
I had also flashed back to the “wilding” idea. You made much more cogent points on the topic that I could.
“Snitching is to incriminate other people, which attorneys often advise their clients to do after negotiating with prosecutors. No one has a right, with or without an attorney, to withhold incriminating information about a crime involving other people.”
Elena, I beg to differ. In the hood, “snitchin” means telling whatever you know. Whether or not it’s incriminating. It’s just spilling the beans, whether you’re a witness, receiver of hearsay, etc. and if you tell you are done. Period.
The term wilding (properly pronounced “whylin”) is an early hiphop term that was in use way before the police used it, for just someone acting out of control. Similiar to the term “buggin” but with a different connotation.
I remember the Central park jogger case, and i don’t know if anyone else has brought this up – lot of comments here – but many years later the accused boys were found innocent – http://www.nodeathpenalty.org/newab027/index.html
The five convicted in the Central Park Case were not found innocent. Their convictions were vacated by a judge. He accepted the district attorney’s theory that the five were too busy beating up other people in the park that night to have attacked her
I notice nobody showed up to admit they were wrong.
Yes, because it’s certainly not like there were ever any posts about the Duke case on this blog other than this one. This post was the very final word on the matter on this blog.
I think what is frustrating for me, primarily, is that Rachel mis-used/mis-understood/mis-appropriated the word “wilding,” all the while in the context of a case which was ultimately a “dud,” as far as her argument is concerned.
All in all, our society has a very unhealthy habit of rushing to judgment and slavering over litigious matters, and this blog entry contributed to it in its own little way.
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So, 4+ years on and still no apology from the author? Figures.
Oh, and BTW, no one said the Central Park teens were not wilding that night. They were in fact beating and robbing and committing other thuggish acts that night in Central Park, just not on the particular victim in question. That is the definition of wilding. It is not a racist term – it merely describes one type of violent, thuggish behavior. Namely, random, widespread assaults by groups of teens. Often because the youths are bored. That black teens are responsible for the vast majority of such incidents is not due to “the Man”, oppression or any other external factor. It stems from parental irresponsibility and the failure by the black community to deal with a major problem among its youth.
As far as I know, the author hasn’t blogged in years; she’s been busy since the twins were born.
As far as I know, the only evidence for this at all is their confessions — which were coerced. Is there any credible evidence that they committed any crimes that night? If so, please link to it.