* Hugs probably hasn’t been stopped because superficially he’s a triple counter: black, Jewish, and autistic. Realistically he should be incarcerated, or his parents should be held accountable for his conduct (i.e., keeping him at home.)
It shouldn’t have been allowed to get to this point, but I am pretty sure that if nothing is done someone is going to get seriously hurt, and not necessarily some lass refusing his embrace.
* Another question, given this is Manhattan, are there any men of great privilege who would be Good Samaritans and step into this mess to defend these presumably white women from this person of color? The city is surprisingly white for those who haven’t spent any time there, so there is no shortage of privileged men around. Nor, for that matter, is there any shortage of NYPD cops. I can think of many cities with even fewer whites per capita on the sidewalks and many fewer cops where this behavior would have been stopped three years ago. Is this the ultimate end result of leftist propaganda and demoralization of white men? Men who refuse to defend even white women from brazen street assaults on women committed by negroes?
* This story reminds me of other black “magnificent gentlemen” of late. Maybe some of the more ‘autistic spectrum’ black males are too timid to straight up rape (and kill) their prey, so they resort to relative (to their peers) passive-aggressive aggression.
This other guy and this NYT op-ed by a Yale assistant professor are indicative of this “love me or else!” entitlement:
Where is the love for us?
It is time that blacks not be expected nor expect of themselves to set the standard for goodness and upstanding character in a society that regularly treats them cruelly. When I ask, where is the love, I am really asking you to tell me in return, to speak by your actions and take responsibility for the kind of radicalism it is now appropriate for blacks to take up: Should we heed Martin’s counsel and open our arms in embrace or should we be wary of yet another painful and bloody era of speaking and acting in bad faith, and as Malcolm advised, close our fists?
* The author is an example of black american intellectuals who are completely obsessed with blackness. As Derb says, their work is all “black black black blackety black.” The man is a professor of philosophy at yale after obtaining a Ph.D. in political science from MIT. Here is his Yale biography, which out of about 20 publications does not have a single one that is not about race:
—
His book, The Color Of Our Shame: Race and Justice In Our Time was published by Oxford University Press in August 2013 and was awarded First Book Prize by the American Political Science Association Foundations of Political Theory section. His article, “The Agony of a Racial Democracy,” was published in Theory & Event vol 15, no. 3, 2012, a symposium on the shooting of Trayvon Martin. His article “Equality From A Human Point Of View,” was published in Critical Philosophy of Race vol 2, no. 2 2014. His paper, “Thoughts on Racial Democratic Education and Moral Virtue” is forthcoming in Theory and Research in Education. He is currently at work on his second book, From A Human Point of View: (Re)Imagining Racial Egalitarianism and a number of entries on race and philosophy: “Between Roots and Routes: On Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic” for the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Classics In Political Theory; “Against Rage: Anger in the Black American Tradition, Democratic Ethics, and Reasonable Frustration” for The Routledge Companion to Race and Philosophy, and “The Importance of Black Literature as Moral and Political Testimony” for The Oxford Handbook to Race and Philosophy. Additionally, Chris has been active in public forums discussing race, social justice, and democratic ethics – most recently he has written for The Boston Review and The New York Times.
—
In the 7 years since he received his Ph.D., he has only published three articles in scholarly journals, but if you are black that is enough to get you a tenured position at Yale University.
* He has underdog status and the leftist mantra is “the underdog is always right”.
This dogma helped when it resulted in the Magna Carta or Habeas Corpus or the Bill of Rights in England, freeing large masses from feudalism and setting the stage for the industrial revolution.
The crucial thing here is that a large quantity of people had their quality (I.e. Productive capacity) raised substantially by leftist moves, resulting in a population primed for exponential technological development.
Having run out of worthy underdogs for a while, leftism is now targeting minor quantities of people for minor, if any, quality increases as in gay marriage or animal rights, simply out of underdogism.
Thus we’re faced with the insanity of simultaneous dropping fertility, gay marriage AND mass Islamic immigration, as in Germany.
* Google “Wild Man of 96th Street” for an example that stretches from 1985 to the present day.
LA TIMES: NEW YORK — They call him the “Wild Man,” and he’s been terrorizing the Upper West Side for seven years.
Larry Hogue, a 52-year-old homeless crack addict, roams the streets with an assortment of weapons–a machete, a screwdriver, an ice pick–and police say he has a penchant for chasing women with small dogs and pushing pedestrians into traffic.
He’s been arrested or sent to mental hospitals at least 37 times since 1985, but always ends up back on the streets of this neighborhood, a mix of affluent high-rise apartments and rough tenements.
Authorities say Hogue is a chilling example of how dangerous, mentally ill people can slip through the cracks of the criminal and mental health systems.
Hogue has a long history of crack addiction and mental illness, police say. But a person cannot be committed to a mental hospital involuntarily unless at least two doctors agree he is an immediate danger to himself or others.
And he can only be held by the legal system when he commits a serious infraction and is tried and convicted.
“Unless they have a court order, we can’t keep them long,” said Martha Reyes, administrative coordinator at St. Luke’s Hospital, where Hogue has often been taken. “We can’t force them to stay. Our hands are tied, too.”
Helen DePaz, a psychiatric nurse at St. Luke’s, has watched Hogue come through several times. “He takes his medicine and then he’s nice,” she said.
Hogue was released from Riker’s Island just recently after a three-month stint for vandalism. He’s already been picked up twice, once for chasing someone with a knife. The following Sunday, he was sent to Bellevue Hospital after he scratched a car with a knife, police said.
Rattled neighbors can be forgiven for doubting he would be there long.
“Everyone on the street is terrified,” said Lisa Lehr, 54, a community activist and auxiliary police officer. “We’re so afraid that when we see him, we flee indoors. He goes after women, children and small pets.”
Sunday was a warm, sunny day with thousands of people strolling the Upper West Side. Before the vandalism incident, Hogue was one of them, walking into traffic and pulling his pants down, sometimes approaching people, trying to open car doors.
Hulking and powerfully built, he cuts a frightening figure as he ambles barefoot down the street, waving his arms as he wades into traffic.
When stopped for an interview by a reporter, Hogue was both friendly and hostile. He appeared disoriented.
“I’m a very angry guy,” he said, dipping a cherry Popsicle into a cup of take-out chowder and then eating it.
Hogue said he likes smoking crack but added that “I need food and $5 a day to live.”
Asked how old he is, Hogue said, “Old enough to kill. I’ll kill anybody for money. If you want someone bumped off, let me know.” He said he grew up in Westport, Conn., but authorities believe he’s from New Jersey.
Lehr said residents fear that Hogue really will kill someone, recalling Kevin McKiever, a 30-year-old transient accused of stabbing a woman to death as she walked her dog on West 69th Street in June, 1991.
Luis Gomez often sees Hogue walk into the middle of 96th Street, pull down his pants and sit down as cars race by. Hogue frequently urinates and defecates on the sidewalk, Gomez said.
“It’s real scary,” said Gomez, wheeling his 9-month-old son, Nicholas, in a stroller down 96th Street.
Hogue was arrested and charged with attempted murder in 1988 for pushing a girl in front of a moving bus. She escaped unhurt. Hogue plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor and served nearly a year in prison, police said.
“We’ve done everything we can but unfortunately he’s protected by mental health laws,” said Officer Heidi Higgins, who has worked on Hogue’s case.
* NEW YORK DAILY NEWS: Before he was put away, Hogue, now 65, menaced the neighborhood around 96th St. He was big and he was bad, regularly mugging people to support his drug habit.
He set fires under cars, heaved rocks through stained glass church windows, masturbated in front of kids, stalked seniors and threatened children with nail-studded clubs.
Cops would arrest him and take him to the psychiatric ward, where he would be cut off from his crack supply.
After a few weeks his demons would disappear and he’d be back to his old tricks on W. 96th St.
Word that Hogue was once again on the loose on 96th St. – even for a short time – sent a chill through area residents.
“I’ve been a New Yorker my whole life and he’s the only thing that makes me afraid,” said Dorothy White, a resident of W. 96th St. for 25 years. “This man is dangerous and I’m terrified.”
Michael Burns, 74, who once saw Hogue smash a car window after the driver refused to pay him for a squeegee job marveled that he wasn’t better guarded.
“Whoever released him has got a screw loose,” Burns said.
Hogue’s reign of terror during the 90s made him a symbol of a blundering mental-health system. He was put in the slammer for a year after he slugged a 16-year-old girl and pushed her in front of a Con Ed truck.
* It does not look like the Hug Thug is part Jewish. His father is named “Tyrone Himmelstein,” and lives in a housing project in spanish harlem (on 2nd ave at 112th street).
It is possible he got the name from a Jewish grandfather, but how many black children were NYC area Jews both siring AND giving their last names to in 1962? (based on the public record of Tyrone’s DOB). Maybe a few by 1972, but not 1962.
The name is not exclusively Jewish, it simply means “Heaven-stone,” the type of pretty sounding name (like Rosenfeld=”Rose Field”) that you had to pay the local government some cash to get as a last name, so is disproportionately but far from exclusively Jewish.
* Imagine that a white frat guy was repeatedly punching, harassing, and shaking women down for money in public places while wearing a “FREE HUGS” sign. It would be a major national scandal. The mayor and police chief would probably be forced to resign. It would be referenced endlessly as a graphic real world example of the misogyny and rape culture created by white men.
* When I was a grad student at Cal in the late 90s-early 00s, it was typical for the psycho homeless on Euclid to try to accost people. No cop ever came by, no one ever turned them away. We were expected to ignore it. One particularly bad time was when a man wouldn’t stop following me or screaming at me, mad that I was smoking and wouldn’t give him a cig. I finally changed my path and abruptly stopped, putting another man between myself and the psycho. The man did nothing, but off the psycho went muttering after someone else.
At that time, I often was down in Palo Alto. One day on University Ave. while standing and smoking, a homeless bum came up to me, probably to beg a cigarette. Before he said anything, a man in a suit walking down the street accosted him, bellowed at him to “Get the Hell away from her” and basically threw him half a block. It took me a minute to even realize I should say thank you, as I was so used to hurrying away rather than standing ground, and so shocked I was that he did Something, let alone For a Woman.
Everything you need to about Cal vs Stanford and Berkeley vs Palo Alto was in those interchanges.
Any real men left in NY? Why not?
* It should be pointed out that the hugs are not free, as the sign claims, so at the very least he’s guilty of false advertising.
There’s apparently a steady supply of young White women who are all too willing to embrace a random young black male stranger. Why is that?!
* Donald Trump’s violent rhetoric at his rallies made this happen.
* “Crazy Larry” terrorized that part of Manhattan for quite a few years. People protested, to no effect. For example, my niece about 12 years old at the time (she and her parents lived in the West 96 street area) was at her bus stop one day when Larry approached, and grabbed one of the 12-year-old boys in a headlock. From what she told me, he was a pretty big guy and completely irrational.
They complained to the city, as did a lot of their fellow residents on the upper West side. Nothing happened until he targeted a middle-aged woman who lived in the same building as my relatives, and who worked for a television station (ABC? Not sure) … The television station chose to do a story on Crazy Larry, and he was soon deported to New Jersey, I believe.
Here’s the point: political influence determines whether or not the government will protect you. I’m sorry to say that, but that’s my conclusion after 30 years working for government at the Town County Federal, and State levels.
* I’m surprised some Staten Island father of one of these girls hasn’t decked this a**hole and explained you don’t hit women, in a way he’ll never forget.
* I am continually astonished at the combination of naivete and moral arrogance that White women exhibit. Hugging a Black male stranger on the street and expecting no problems…
* One of the first rules of NYC is ‘mind your own business’. It’s not full of chivalrous sorts, never has been.
* So how many hugs does he give to other blacks? I’m thinking zero. It’s vast majority white girls, right?
This paragraph is comedy gold in the African style:
“I observed the girl going down into the subway system, and I hid my cardboard sign behind a pole. I followed the girl into the subway system, sucker punched her, and then I jumped over the turnstile and ran away.”
These words offer a tremendous incite into the thought process. It’s all right there. Next time you hear about some heinous crime committed by one his brothas and think ‘What were they thinking?’ —-well, now you know.
* In the old days of 20 or more years ago, that was considered chivalry. It was actually pretty common in my experience. But along with it, women were nicer to men. I don’t have a better way to say it.
And even after radical feminism became ingrained in so many women’s attitudes, men hadn’t really recalibrated. Now they have.
* He’s been running an extortion racket through intimidation and the threat of violence. He has his ‘FREE HUGS’ sign and runs up to young, easily scared women and cows them into going along with the supposed free hug. Then he demands money and turns menacing, dropping the friendly facade and intimidating the women into handing over some money. That’s how he’s been able to make $30 p/hr. There’s different variations of this sort of thing played out against tourists and other unsuspecting persons all over. Beware of strangers approaching you about anything and don’t be afraid to be unfriendly in brushing them off.
* Steve, as long as you’re dealing with reigns of terror consistently ignored by the constabulary here in NYC, can you do something about the bike gangs of Inwood/Ft George/Washington Heights? They somewhat came to the public eye after running down and beating an Asian youth who was driving his wife and child in an SUV and fell afoul of their Mad Max antics, but since that burst of publicity nothing has changed. They take over the streets on warm weekends like Dodge City on payday.
* I see them popping wheelies down Second then over the Queensboro Bridge and up and down Queens Boulevard. Kinda like Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin in The Wild Ones. That’s a unique black sub-culture. I haven’t read anything in the press about them.
* You know that old saw about how it’s better to teach the poor to fish, than to just give them fish?
I guess it applies here as well. If you see a girl grappling with diversity, you don’t help her right away, that’s like giving her fish.
So what you do when you see she’s got herself into Black trouble, you catch her eye as you walk past and say, “You shoulda voted Trump!”
* Who wants to be the next George Zimmerman? Who is going to lay hands on a black jewish autistic? No white man that has been through the American education system and watches TV. You just don’t do that.
* I saw black motorcycle gangs roar by in Chicago in the 1980s and 1990s, maybe up to three dozen at once.
My impression is that motorcycle gangs tend to be guys who were in the military, come home, and find civilian life dull. They’re a nuisance, but they’re less trouble in America than the freikorps of ex-soldiers were in Germany after the Great War. Motorcycle gang members tend to be older and richer than street gang members, so they’re fewer in number and thus are a less pervasive problem.
* Liberals went to court in the late 60s saying that being mentally ill was just a lifestyle choice, and that even if they were mentally ill, it was cruel to warehouse them when they could be re-integrated into society and get their meds at a community center, blah, blah, blah. The well-done but dishonest movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest had a great influence.
Fully 1/3 of hospital beds in the 60s were in mental institutions, so states were happy to be rid of these people. And of course the community centers never materialized and even if they did, these guys (it was mostly guys) were too drunk or crazy or drugged to remember to go get their meds.
And now we spend billions of dollars subsidizing the street life of crazies, druggies, and alcoholics. And the Left has another Compassion Club to beat Republicans with. Note that we have heard nothing about the homeless (or about Cindy Sheehan for that matter) since one January day in 2009. Homelessness will be a National Problem once again the day Trump is sworn in.
* I imagine today the Kitty Genovese case would not be an example the bystander effect in psychology, but would be about social homophobia and violence against the LGBT community because Genovese happened to be a lesbian and lived with her partner, Mary Ann Zielonko. What’s worse than doing nothing because of some bystander apathy? Doing nothing because of social homophobia because you are a horrible person and devalue people because of sexual orientation.
* Perhaps some sunlight here might lead to sunlight elsewhere and accomplish some public good on behalf of New Yorkers.
* This being Manhattan, I’m amazed that nobody has called this a performance piece meant to start a conversation about the intersection of privilege, gender, race, and traditional notions of boundaries and public space.
* Altercations between men and women in public are often part of some chaotic relationship problem. Getting involved is a waste of time.
But…
At one time one could be sure that a black man, white woman altercation was not in this category and thus one could intervene on her side.
* For an “autistic” guy this Jeremy/Jermaine sure seems to talk a lot.
Autism used to be a pretty clear-cut diagnosis. “Autistic” meant someone who didn’t speak if he could avoid it and who shied away from physical contact, along with obsessive and repetitive behavior of an a-social or anti-social nature. When they could be tested, autistics had decent IQs for handicapped people.
This guy seems to be about the opposite. Talks a lot, stands in a crowded park with a sign seeking physical contact fer cryin’ out loud, and pretty deficient thought processes. Much more likely he’s just kinda retarded and violent. But “autistic” is a somewhat more exotic and classier diagnosis, so maybe some doctor up-diagnosed him so as not to appear racist, which seems to be everyone’s Prime Directive nowadays.
* I used to work at a home and workshop for handicapped people. One of the interesting HBD aspects was that the various handicapped residents often seemed to show ethnically stereotyped behavior to a very exaggerated degree.
For example, the white Yankee guys were obsessive about organization and scheduling, picked up trash they didn’t drop and made sure the recycling was done to a “t”. Black women loved loud music and attention and were generally warm-hearted. Jewish guys were clever and often surprisingly sophisticated about getting what they wanted and often had savant-ish, Rain-Man talents. Latino: bravado and interest in females. Black guys were violent and sexually aggressive and exhibitionistic.
One might almost say that stripped of their higher cognitive functions, the residents became ethnic self-caricatures. That experience went some way in convincing me that HBD is hardwired in at a pretty basic level.
* I just checked with my rabbi: Jermaine Himmelstein is not up to date with his AIPAC dues. So y’all can have at him.
* Himmelstein is just performing Tikkun Olam in his own iconic way.
* Steve! What the hell? Did you not bother to dig into this guy? Don’t you know he had just finished teaching violin to blind orphans and was on his way to Columbia where he triple-majored (25 credit hours/semester!) in quantum mechanics, neurochemistry, and aerospace engineering, when this girl crudely threw a flammable liquid on a litter of stray kittens and threatened to light it, so he merely tried to knock the lighter out of her hand and missed, hitting her in the face? Sure, blame it on the “violent” black man like you guys always do. All of this court drama now for him; he was making good progress on a cure for Zika virus and HIV when he volunteered 60 hrs/week at a local lab, but now its definitely going to be delayed for quite some time. I guess the whole world has to suffer now for these crazy white people.
