THE BIG CARNIVAL: Media Blackout of the 'Knockout Game'

By David Paulin

It's an infuriating example of political correctness: Most of New York City's media outlets have sanitized the nature of a spate of unprovoked attacks upon hapless pedestrians -- all recent victims of the so-called "knockout game." There have been injuries and several deaths among men, women, and youngsters, as they suffered walloping “sucker punches” by roving black youths in New York City and elsewhere.

The knockout game involves an unmentionable subject for most in the mainstream media: black-on-white violence. To a lesser extent, Asians and Hispanics have been targeted as well. They're white enough, it seems, for black youths playing the knockout game.

For those unfamiliar with the knockout game, it's how some black youths amuse themselves, especially in urban settings. The goal: use a single devastating punch to knock a hapless victim unconscious. And when they succeed, they invariably react with merriment and laughter, as videos capturing the mayhem have revealed. Could racism be motivating these black youths? Nobody in the mainstream media dares suggest that this might be fueling the black mob violence in what President Obama said would be a post-racial era.

The knockout game, to be sure, has been around a few years. It has been mostly ignored by the mainstream media, which generally airbrushes out the black-on-white nature of the mayhem. The knockout game, however, was the subject of a lengthy American Thinker article by John T. Bennett way back on July 14, 2011. Now, in light of the spate of recent attacks in New York City and nearby cities, some media outlets are belatedly acknowledging that the knockout game is indeed a growing trend – though they still tiptoe around the fact that the attackers are black.

In Brooklyn, some recent victims of the knockout game were Jews, which is finally prompting New York City police officials to state that "hate crimes" may have occurred.

Hate crimes? That must have shocked some at the New York Daily News, which on Monday ran an article that failed to note the generally black-on-white nature of the knockout game. Reporter Michael Walsh merely wrote that, "This disturbing game is a hit with goons" and is an "emerging trend among unhinged teens."

And on Fox's "The Real Story" on Tuesday, two “experts” opined during a panel discussion that the black youths playing the knockout game were possibly influenced by violent video games or raised in troubled homes. "This is about parenting at the core," chimed in blond-haired moderator Gretchen Carlson.

All about parenting, huh? Fair enough. But that also raises the question of just what some black parents are teaching their little darlings, given that they prefer to attack mostly whites. It’s safe to say that the media would readily cry "racism" if the knockout game involved roving gangs of white youths attacking blacks and to a lesser extent Asians and Hispanics.

Fox's Greta Van Susteren, for her part, gets it, unlike some of her colleagues at Fox News, which is the news channel that I usually watch. In her "On the Record" segment, Susteren raised alarm bells about the knockout game.

"Take a close look," she said, referring to a video clip showing black youths playing the knockout game. "Do you know what is going on? That is young African-American teenagers viciously and gratuitously attacking a random victim, a teacher, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

"This knockout game crime is a trend," she added. "We've had two incidents in the last few days right here in D.C. I know this is a very touchy topic because the game is regrettably popular amongst unsupervised African-American teens. No one wants to get near the topic of race. We also can't run from this one."

She concluded: "I beg of Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton and even President Obama to step up right now and speak out. Your silence will speak volumes, but your voice could make a big difference. Don't wait. Be leaders, they need you. We need you."

Unfortunately, it would be out of character for these black leaders to speak out against the knockout game. They prefer to shame whites -- not blacks -- in order to achieve their left-leaning visions of social justice and score political points.

To its credit, the New York Post did run a piece on Tuesday exposing the unpleasant truths about the knockout game -- and how the recent incidents in New York City and elsewhere underscore the pathologies of black thug culture. But that no-holds-barred article ("Thugs Target Jews in Sick Knockout Game") wasn't written by a New York Post reporter but by Thomas Sowell, an African-American and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, the conservative think tank.

It would be interesting to know if the knockout game is being played in cities and states with high numbers of concealed carry permits. But the answer to that might not square with the mainstream media's anti-gun agenda.

As New York's newspapers and online sites tiptoe around race in their coverage of the knockout game, news channels are presenting a more honest picture of what's happening due to the visual nature of their medium -- as is underscored by this segment from a New York news channel.