After blacks in Cincinnati beat white adults, why was there no nationwide racial outrage?

https://nypost.com/2025/08/03/opinion/after-blacks-in-cincinnati-beat-white-adults-why-was-there-no-nationwide-racial-outrage/

By 

Victor Davis Hanson

Recently, a large group of black youths began pummeling white adults in downtown Cincinnati.

The original altercation apparently broke out between a black and white male in he-said/he-said fashion. But that dispute soon turned into a virtual free-for-all.

Numerous male and female black youths sucker-punched a middle-aged woman. Others continued to kick or body-slam the victims.

Three people appeared in court after being arrested in the Cincinnati brawl. WLWT

There were many disturbing aspects to the beatdowns.

One, the violence broke out along racial and age fault lines. After the initial dispute, groups of black youths swarmed solitary older white bystanders to pound them.

Two, the surrounding assembled group of black youths not only failed to intervene to restrain the bullies, they recorded the beatings for social media and were heard cheering on the one-sided violence.

Three, there was neither a police presence nor any timely good Samaritan interventions.

Four, oddly few of the usual black spokespeople who habitually comment on interracial violence were to be seen.

During the fake Jussie Smollett attack, self-appointed leaders from Al Sharpton to Kamala Harris immediately issued warnings about so-called systemic white racism that had reared its ugly head to victimize Smollett.

Yet when it was revealed that Smollett had concocted the entire charade — and even hired his own assaulters — there were few if any retractions from those once so eager to shout “Racist!”

Such demagoguery is a well-known pattern dating back to the days of the Tawana Brawley rape hoax, the Duke Lacrosse charade, the Covington kids ruse, the Michael Ford “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” fabrication or the NASCAR noose fable.

Racialists too often concoct white racist attackers and go silent when the evidence proves fabricated — only to be primed to manipulate the next hoax.

Five, the media and authorities did their best to either hide or play down the violence.

City leaders, the chief of police and the media variously blamed the mass black-on-white violence on 1) social media, 2) the original dispute, 3) alcohol, 4) the lack of civilian intervention to stop the violence and 5) a festival atmosphere — anything except endemic racial hatred shown toward whites from the crowd of black youths.

Six, had a gang of white toughs beat middle-aged African Americans senseless, recorded it and cheered on the violence, there would have been immediate national outrage.

Nor did anyone wish to raise the taboo topic of inordinate black crime rates, disproportionate to respective demographic realities.

In rare interracial violent crimes, the asymmetrical ratio of black-on-white versus white-on-black assaults ranges from three to five times greater.

Seven, the quiet of the left-wing media to the reprehensible violence stands in marked contrast with their usual rush-to-judgment racialism in two near-simultaneous incidents.

When a shooter entered a New York City corporate headquarters last week and executed four innocents, CNN falsely raised the speculation that a “white male” was perhaps responsible — despite the photograph of the suspect, who was as clearly male as he was not white.

Media and municipal officials jumped to explain the violence as due to the killer’s alleged past traumatic brain injury or because of his access to a semi-automatic weapon — or anything other than his hate-filled plan to murder an NFL executive.

Actress and model Sydney Sweeney just cut a jeans commercial in front of a poster that said, “Sydney Sweeney has great genes” — with “genes” crossed out and replaced with “jeans.”

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The left then exploded, alleging the ad was a supposed Hitlerian reference to white eugenics.

Yet the eugenics movement in America was mostly a product of left-wing progressives, from Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger to Democratic President Woodrow Wilson.

And the ad’s sponsor, American Eagle, had previously used all sorts of models from all racial backgrounds.

All might agree that the ad simply shows both tight, sexy jeans and a naturally attractive wearer — period.

The country is descending into a tribal morass of double standards and racial fixations.

The diversity/equity/inclusion industry, the defund-the-police madness and the perpetual left-wing hunt for “white racism/white privilege/white rage” — from the prior Pentagon hierarchy to the lunatic fringe of Jasmine Crockett, Joy Reid and Zohran Mamdani — have all legitimized double standards while lowering the bar of the once unacceptable.

When our careerist left-wing elites seek to divide us by race and make it essential, not incidental, to our identities, that tribalist message filters throughout communities.

The ensuing signal is that “payback” violence is OK — on the expectation that there are no consequences for interracial violence — as long as the victim is white and the assaulter is not.

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness.