By Paul Kersey
02/10/2014
[See also: "What Will Come Of The Race War That Roils The Streets Of Baltimore?"]
It’s becoming one of the more amusing rituals of American political life: a naïve white liberal Notices (or even implies) the Hatefact that crime is disproportionately black and is instantly lynched by his/ her own kind. Last year, it was Philadelphia Magazine’s Robert Huber, whose Being White in Philly cover story actually caused the black mayor of the city, Michael Nutter, to write to the Philadelphia Human Rights Commission demanding action be taken. This year, it’s Tracey Halvorsen, a white Baltimore woman who just published an article [Baltimore City, You're Breaking My Heart| This is why people leave, Medium.com, February 7, 2014] in which she went to the very edge of the racial abyss in describing why the 63.5 percent black city is dying — only to turn tail under pressure.
Halvorsen appears to be the epitome of Stuff White People Like liberals. Her Twitter profile reads: President & Chief Visionary Officer at Fastspot. Artist, animal lover, writer, joker, traveler. Life’s short, have fun. Perhaps to establish her PC credentials, she made it clear that she’s a lesbian.
Maybe Halvorsen’s passionate philippic was provoked by the murder earlier in the week of 51-year-old Kimberley Leto, a white female bartender. Leto was murdered in her home by two black males, aged 16 and 14 — the 14-year-old, only an eight grader, asked the judge to be allowed out on bail to visit his daughter. [Police arrest teenagers in Ellwood Avenue homicide: Kimberly Leto found dead inside Patterson Park home, WBALTV.com, February 3, 2014]
Halvorsen’s piece didn’t even mention race, but it’s 100 percent about the problems the black community causes in Baltimore, exacerbated by complete black control of City Hall:
Life takes you places, you follow a course that isn’t completely of your own making. One day you wake up, and it’s really all up to you. So where do you want to live? I happen to live in a city. Baltimore, to be specific.
And I’m growing to absolutely hate it here.
I’m tired of hearing about 12 year old girls being held up at gun-point while they walk to school.
https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/crime/blog/bs-md-ci-12-year-old-girl-robbed-20140206,0,5595591.story [VDARE.com note: URLs in original]
I’m tired of saying “Oh Baltimore’s great! It’s just got some crime problems.”
https://baltimorecrime.blogspot.com/
I’m tired of living in a major crime zone while paying the highest property taxes in the state.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/06/city-baltimore-is-on-path-to-financial-ruin-report-says/
I’m tired of hearing about incompetent city leaders who are more fixated on hosting the Grand Prix than dealing with thousands of vacant buildings that create massive slums, and rampant crime.
I’m tired of being looked at like prey.
Halvorsen went on to supply more devastating details.
They don’t call it “The City that Bleeds” because of a high-rate of voluntary blood donors to the Red Cross.
Halvorsen’s piece went viral. The Baltimore Sun ran an article. [Rash of crimes in Southeast Baltimore sparks new debate over public safety By Carrie Wells, February 8, 2014]
WYPR producer Lawrence Lanahan claimed in a response that that “white privilege” was really to blame: "Whose Heart is Baltimore Breaking, Really?", February 7, 2014.
The joy of our interconnected world meant that I could take to Twitter and engage our newfound celebrity in conversation, pointing out that she forgot to mention the world “black.”
Halvorsen tweeted back to @SBPDL:
@Laura_Rhymes @sbpdl my opinions and my article have nothing to do with race and I don’t appreciate my content being used to promote racism.
— Tracey Halvorsen (@TraceyHalvorsen) February 8, 2014
Forget that this is a city where the zero-tolerance crime policy of a white mayor (Martin O’Malley 1999 to 2007) was denounced as racial profiling by black leaders like the Rev. John L. Wright, who revealingly said: “The common denominator is ‘lock up Negroes.’” [Black officials raise zero-tolerance fears: O'Malley tells group that enforcement will not be race-based, By Ivan Penn, Baltimore Sun December 21, 1999]
(After O’Malley was elected governor of Maryland in 2006,, the first black female mayor of the city rescinded the zero-tolerance on crime order almost immediately upon taking office [Baltimore mayor to Announce Leonard Hamm’s resignation | Mayor Sheila Dixon successfully sought police commissioner’s resignation, July 18, 2007]
In 2010, the city of Baltimore settled with the NAACP and the ACLU over daring to try to cut down crime. [City approves settlement with NAACP, ACLU in 'mass arrest' case; Agreement calls for auditor to review 'quality of life' arrests by city police, Baltimore Sun, June 23, 2010])
Forget for a second that homicide in Baltimore is almost exclusively a black-on-black problem, with ‘disrespect killings’ (not drugs) one of the primary motivations. [Bill Bratton hired to review Baltimore Police Department:'Respect crime' fuels most violence in city, Bratton says, WBALTV, July 25, 2013]
Forget for a second that Baltimore is a place where high-profile black-on-white assaults/murders are routinely covered-up by the Baltimore Sun ( e.g. on St. Patrick’s Day 2012) St. Patrick’s Day violence exceeded initial reports, police dispatch tapes show, April 10, 2012–which then editorialized that it was irresponsible to notice “Black Youth Mobs Terrorize Baltimore on Holidays”–and is downplayed by the police department. [Bealefeld: Downtown beating not a hate crime, April 10, 2012]
Halvorsen herself, of course, failed to mention that Leto had been murdered by blacks, or that what she called the “pack of kids” who curb stomped Zack Sowers were also black; and she didn’t mention at all the notorious 2010 killing of breast cancer researcher Stephen Pitcairn, also by blacks. [Hopkins researcher’s promising life cut short in robbery: Two arrested in connection with crime robbery charges against suspect were dropped in May, By Justin Fenton, Baltimore Sun, July 27, 2010].
No wonder she assumed her PC credentials would protect her.
Baltimore is a city where violence is such a fact of life that a black mayoral candidate’s idea of a $1 per bullet tax on all bullets purchased in the city to reduce crime was widely supported. ['Bullet Tax' Proposed By Mayoral Candidate: Otis Rolley Running In September’s Primary, WBALTV.com July 28, 2011]
And back in 2002, when a black man firebombed the house of black family, killing a mother and five children, because they had reported drug activity to the police, even black legislators called for the deployment of the National Guard. [Man, 21, charged in fatal city fire: Police say he was angry with neighboring family for reporting drug activity; 'This is terror, too,' official says; Outraged lawmakers seek to call in state police, Guard to help fight crime, Baltimore Sun, October 18, 2002].
But effective action would require blaming black people. And that can’t be done in modern America — as evidenced by Halvorsen’s tail-turning tweet.
Though she ignited a conversation about crime and race in yet another dying, bankrupt, majority black city, Halvorsen is a card-carrying member of a vast coalition united by their contempt for traditional values of the Historic America Nation.
To Halvorsen, being seen as sympathizing with this group is a fate worse than being the victim of black crime in Baltimore.
Paul Kersey is the author of the blog SBPDL, and has published the books SBPDL Year One, Hollywood in Blackface and Escape From Detroit, Opiate of America: College Football in Black and White and Second City Confidential: The Black Experience in Chicagoland. His latest book is The Tragic City: Birmingham 1963-2013.
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