Talk:Seattle Mardi Gras Riots

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Liberals in denial and African Americans trying to justify what happened are the reason this happened and events like this will continue to happen. Commentators on this "Talk Page" asking for sources, citing "Bias" or "lack of neutrality" are clearly making feeble attempts to re-write the events of 2/27/01. THERE IS VIDEO OF THE BLACK ON WHITE VIOLENCE. CLEAR, UNEDITED AND IN NO WAY OBSCURED IN ITS DEPICTION. THE WORLD AND INTELLIGENT MINDS DON'T NEED TO DEBATE THE CONJECTURE AND VALIDITY OF SOURCES.[[[1]] link] It is a disgusting and shameful display of the depths of humanity and perhaps a hard pill to swallow for some; Nevertheless, attempting to negate the various literary accounts of what occurred will never diminish the cold hard reality that was on display for the world to see that night:

African Americans commiting senseless random acts of violence on Whites. 4 on 1, 4 males on 1 female, kicking humanity in the head, BRUTALLY attacking someone for no reason, all on video, all quite barbaric. THERE IS NO OTHER INTERPRETATION! Bklein9104 (talk) 06:11, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

The Seattle Establishment? Is there an address for that? could you be a bit more specific, cite a source or two? thats a pretty nebulous phrase, and it just makes you sound like a nutcase

Who authored this article? I need it for school, plz.

The tone of this article seems to be rather biased. Not enough sources are cited. This article needs to explain what started the violence in the first place. -- futurebird 03:29, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

"Most of the violence was due to roving groups of African Americans singling out white victims and viciously assaulting them". There is no neutrality or scope of circumstance in this phrase and needs to be edited. Throughout the article but particularly in this opening phrase it merely labels African-Americans as violent thugs with its sensational language and biased opinions.Portz 16:06, 25 January 2007 (UTC)

If this was cause for concern, then fists shouldn't have been thrown in the first place. I'll have to read the remainder of the article, but the line you've quoted does not seem 'biased', but capturing the incident and the actions of those involved. Cascadia^TALK|HISTORY 15:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Futurebird complains that the article is biased? Please recall that the arch-liberal counter-culture newspaper "The Stranger" was the source out of which the clear-cut racial attack report was cited. If the evidentiary truth makes one a "nutcase," then may I suggest that denial of clear, irrefutable evidence makes one . . . well, you *should* get the picture.

Peter1589 16:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)peter1589Peter1589 16:27, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

The article is biased. The "riots" were not principally racial at all, and there are plenty of reports and visual evidence showing whites, Asians, Latinos, and Blacks all participating in violence and sexually assaulting women. Men and women of all races were charged with crimes relating to the incident. Patricksartini9@hotmail.com 04:33, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I removed words like "brutally" and "viciously". Whoever wrote those in is a moron. 24.186.192.247 16:57, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

NOT SURE IF ANYBODY CARES, BUT I WAS THERE, AND ANYBODY WHO CLAIMS THERE WAS NOT A RACIAL COMPONENT OF BLACK MALE ON WHITE FEMALE VIOLENCE IS EITHER IGNORANT OR OUT OF THEIR MINDS. I HAD TO GO PICK UP MY GIRLFRIEND, WHO WORKED IN PIONEER SQUARE, AFTER SHE WAS SERIOUSLY INJURED BY A GIGANTIC BLACK MAN, WHO BODY-SLAMMED HER ON THE CURB.

I vote this entry be deleted. It is biased and offers only a small factual account of what occurred during the riot. Further, it relies heavily on an editorial piece in the Stranger. The direct quote from the Stranger (see below) evinces the article’s editorial nature.

"This was a race riot...the kind of race riot Seattle produced was different, scarier in two ways: (1) blacks exploded not in their own neighborhood, but in a white, commercial district; (2) their rage was directed not at the police, but at white civilians."

Although there is a smattering of fact in the Stranger article, it is an editorial. Opinion pieces, while informative, generally shouldn’t be a fact source for an encyclopedia entry. Encyclopedia entries are supposed to offer factual accounts and descriptions. By relying on this particular Stranger article as a fact source, this encyclopedia entry has now been infused with the opinion of the original editorial.

Lastly, the final paragraph is poorly written. It attempts to explain the aftermath of the riots, yet does not cite any sources. Also, the conclusions drawn seem tangentially related to the riots.

NEW ADDITION, DIFFERENT COMMENTER FROM ABOVE, ADDED 8/16/07: The last paragraph is at best redundant, but is really editorializing and does not add much hard factual information to the topic. The rest is largely neutral.

This paragraph should be cleaned up. Recommended omissions are struck as they are editorializations:

Police Chief Gil Kerlikowske ordered the police at the scene not to intervene, instead maintaining a perimeter around the violence, supposedly because he feared escalation. Shortly after the incident, the Seattle police force voted a resolution of "no confidence" in Chief Kerlikowske when officers complained of being "held back too long". The City of Seattle acknowledged police strategy presented a public safety threat, and settled with Kime's family for just under $2,000,000.

Several of the perpetrators admitted to racial motivation in their attacks, and the Seattle Police recommended they be charged with hate crimes. However, none of the perpetrators were charged by the prosecutors with hate crimes, which if convicted, would have increased their jail sentences. Under interrogation, Khalid Adams stated that he "most likely" kicked a white man on the ground because of his race and that he believed a race war was in progress. EDIT: citation needed

Plus, the Stranger, while they call themselves a newspaper, is an 'advocacy journalism' publication, which operates with a political agenda and will editorialize with a clear and obvious bias at will, and thus should be cited with caution. The text cited should not qualify, since it is an editorial opinion on the part of the author.SGinSEA 05:03, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

It's hard to believe this discussion page was even worse than the article was, but somehow it was. I overhauled the article and gave it a more NPOV framing. I removed things attributed to the Stranger that they did not actually claim. I removed the claim that Khalid Adams said he "most likely" attacked someone based on race since I could only find one website to verify this, and it was a hate website that referred to blacks as "negroes." (In other words, it lacked any credibility.) For the record, the Stranger is counter-culture, not liberal; Do not take anything they print as any kind of "concession of the left." Also, does anyone have any source regarding the curfews Seattle instituted on Mardi Gras for years after the incident? I know this happened, at least for a while, but I can't find a source to cite on it. WallyCuddeford (talk) 18:27, 18 February 2008 (UTC)