To read the tribute to SFC Marcus Muralles, please click here
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Behaving Badly
Last weekend, one of the malls in Austin closed its doors a couple of hours early. Its reason? Several fights breaking out in the parking lot, a couple of shoplifters, and greater than normal crowds (because of the Texas Relays being held at UT). Here's what the mall had to say:
For some reason, I don't think race was why they shut down the mall. You see, there were several fights (in the mall itself and in the parking lot), and there was an abnormally large crowd of teenagers (with nothing better to do than loiter around the mall all day). There were also some shoplifters caught, and things were getting a bit tense.
I really doubt it was a racial thing. Not all the kids there were African American. (I've been to that mall on several occasions. Yes, there are a lot of African American kids there every weekend. There are also a lot of Hispanic kids hanging around. White kids? A few.) The mall is in a mostly minority part of town. Most of the employees at the mall (both retailers and security) are minority. Saying it was a racial incident covers up what really might have happened.
(What I'm about to tell you is hearsay. It might just be kids talking. You never know.) A white female student at a local high school was asked if she was planning on going to Highland Mall over the weekend. She said she might, and her friend (no race was mentioned) suggested that she not go because there were quite a few people going to the mall with the expressed purpose of getting into fights... because of all of the schools in town for the Relays.
Does it really matter what color the kids were? They were breaking the law (fighting, loitering), and something needed to be done. The easiest way to take care of the situation was to close the mall. At least they didn't try to drag all the kids off to jail.
No, Mr. Linder, it wasn't about race. It was about bad behavior. Those kids did it. End of story.
"Safety for our customers, our merchants, our staff is always Highland Mall's top priority. ...As a result of the combination of incidents that occurred and large amount of people, we chose to close the mall a couple hours earlier than normal."Right away, the local NAA(L)CP representative went off on the racial tangent.
Linder says people were just tense about the crowds of African Americans in town for the Texas Relays, and all the black shoppers at Highland Mall.He went on to say that there are fights all the time on 6th Street, and no one calls for 6th Street to be shut down. (I know a lot of people who would love to see 6th Street tamed quite a bit, but that's neither here nor there.) He pointed to all of the white people on 6th Street as opposed to the black shoppers at the mall. I guess the fact that the "white people" (I've seen all skin tones there, but I'm sure he's right) are of legal age going from bar to bar, and the fact that the "black shoppers" at the mall were mostly minors just hanging around, loitering, and not actually shopping, are beside the point.
“The problem is you have too many kids in one place,” Linder said. “The other problem is that the mall has overreactions to that many black folks being in one place.”
For some reason, I don't think race was why they shut down the mall. You see, there were several fights (in the mall itself and in the parking lot), and there was an abnormally large crowd of teenagers (with nothing better to do than loiter around the mall all day). There were also some shoplifters caught, and things were getting a bit tense.
I really doubt it was a racial thing. Not all the kids there were African American. (I've been to that mall on several occasions. Yes, there are a lot of African American kids there every weekend. There are also a lot of Hispanic kids hanging around. White kids? A few.) The mall is in a mostly minority part of town. Most of the employees at the mall (both retailers and security) are minority. Saying it was a racial incident covers up what really might have happened.
(What I'm about to tell you is hearsay. It might just be kids talking. You never know.) A white female student at a local high school was asked if she was planning on going to Highland Mall over the weekend. She said she might, and her friend (no race was mentioned) suggested that she not go because there were quite a few people going to the mall with the expressed purpose of getting into fights... because of all of the schools in town for the Relays.
Does it really matter what color the kids were? They were breaking the law (fighting, loitering), and something needed to be done. The easiest way to take care of the situation was to close the mall. At least they didn't try to drag all the kids off to jail.
No, Mr. Linder, it wasn't about race. It was about bad behavior. Those kids did it. End of story.
