The Cincinnati Shame

I was going to ignore the evil, racially motivated attack by a crowd of black youths on a white couple in Cincinnati. 

It played too much into racial stereotypes, and while it was a good example of the double standards we see all the time regarding racially-tinged violent encounters, I really didn’t want to get dragged into a rathole of racial grievance. 

It is just a fact that black people are routinely excused and forgiven for attacking white people, while the opposite is the case for white people. Every time a white person attacks a black person–a relatively rare occurrence according to crime statistics–it is portrayed as symbolic of America’s hostility to blacks. Nearly every time a black person or group attacks a white person, it is largely ignored or buried by the Pravda Media. 

Black racism is seen as a form of social justice–to the point that it is now common to claim that blacks cannot be racist, no matter what their actual attitude about white people is, because they are oppressed. 

Still, I wanted to stay away from this whole story because it plays into prejudices. I don’t believe that black people are inherently violent; I think our society excuses the violence, so we get more of it. 

Cincinnati is what happens when society breaks down into tribe-on-tribe violence

You can hear them laughing and cheering as they stop on innocent women young and old

We don’t have to live like this pic.twitter.com/jkyofcOxjc

— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) July 29, 2025

There was a time when, in parts of the country, white people could abuse blacks without consequence, and so they did. When people’s IDs are validated and enabled, their ID comes out. It happens in mob violence–it is what makes mobs so dangerous and violent. Social norms, above all else, are necessary to constrain our worst impulses and channel them into productive activities.

So what changed my mind about writing about the incident? It’s simple: Cincinnati Police Chief Terri Theetge’s comments on the incident, which appeared to suggest that there is any context in which a crowd of teens could attack a couple on the street and not be 100% in the wrong. 

UNBELIEVABLE-
Cincinnati Police Chief Terri Theetge is now attempting to downplay the attack on a group of white people at a jazz festival by black individuals. She blames social media for the fact that the urban decay in her own city went viral. pic.twitter.com/kHnZ3wdWVq

— Rochellemaryn 🌹🕊️ (@RochelleAz) July 29, 2025

The video of the attack is hard to watch. Boys and girls gleefully assault a couple walking down the street, stomping on them while filming the incident. We don’t know exactly what started the incident, but it is hard to imagine a context where a middle-aged couple walking from having a nice dinner provoked anything this appalling. 

I can’t. 

She’s currently being sued by members of her own force who say she only gives promotions to women and people of color. So this hatred she has for white people seems on brand. https://t.co/kxSU2V6v1H https://t.co/ehBPQzW0DA pic.twitter.com/LoEPLDxxLq

— Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) July 29, 2025

Yet apparently the police chief–who has zero evidence of what happened prior to the event–is angry that people have seen it and drawn conclusions from what they have seen. It makes her life harder–presumably because it enhances racial tensions–and she wishes that the reality had been hidden. 

Of course, most of us wish it hadn’t happened. 

Chief Theetge was also appalled that people videotaped the event rather than calling the police–she’s right about that–but failed to note that the people who did so were with the assaulters, not mere bystanders. Of course, they didn’t call the police. They were on the side of the perpetrators and laughing it up. 

BREAKING: Vice President JD Vance just WENT OFF on the violent mob that attacked two men and a middle-aged woman at the Cincinnati Jazz Festival:

“Take the thugs who engaged in that violence and throw their asses in prison.”

“You had a grown man who sucker punched a middle-aged… pic.twitter.com/803KwikBjF

— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 28, 2025

By calling for “context,” the Chief is softening the culpability of the thugs who beat up a middle-aged couple. And that was the clear intent she had, because nobody wants to confront the fact that black people have been given the message that their violence towards others–including other black people–is excused by the fact that they are part of an “oppressed” class. 

I will insist to my dying breath that this is a cultural problem and not primarily a racial one–a culture of permissiveness brings out the worst in people, and there have been plenty of cultural contexts that have enabled hideous violence from other racial groups, including white people. 

But BLM-style “solutions” make things far worse and increase racial tensions. It would have been simple for the Chief to have addressed the violence and the response to it without invoking woke excuses, but she couldn’t go there. She could have called for law and order, citizen willingness to call the police, and reasserted her commitment to justice and protecting the public while avoiding race altogether. 

But nope. She had to go there and imply that black youths attacking a white couple had to be understood “in context.”

There is no context in which what happened is explicable or excusable. 

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