Thread: May 1 Beat Up a White Kid Day?

I just read this and I have never heard of this before in my life! Is this true? Is this legit? Has this been going on or is this some kind of hoax?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_Up_a_White_Kid_Day

Beat Up a White Kid Day
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Beat Up a White Kid Day is the colloquial name for racially motivated attacks that occur on May 1 where African American, Hispanic, and other people of color randomly seek out white (Caucasian) children and attack them. First publicized in Cleveland, Ohio, USA[1] in 1993 following the May 1, 1992 national appeal for calm by Rodney King during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, these attacks occur on May 1, mostly in connections with schools.[citation needed] These occurrences were recognized through an October 2003 U.S. court proceeding, where an Ohio judge concluded that "based on the evidence I've heard, May Day is reality and the evidence was overwhelming that this was an attack based on May Day and that the victim was chosen because she was white."[2]
Contents
[hide]

* 1 Background
* 2 May Day beatings
o 2.1 2003
+ 2.1.1 2003 fall-out
* 3 See also
* 4 Notes

[edit] Background

May 1 traditionally has been a celebration of spring, a day of political protests, a day for organized labor and, in many countries, it is a national holiday.[3] May Day (a name used interchangeably with International Workers' Day) has long been associated as a day honoring the working class - those who sell their labor efforts for wages and do not own the means of production. This "Day of the Worker" originated with the 1886 Haymarket Riots and has long been a focal point for demonstrations by various socialist, communist, and anarchist groups.[4]

The 1992 Los Angeles riots, also known as the Rodney King riots, ran from April 29, 1992 to May 4, 1992 and overlapped May Day. Thousands of people in Los Angeles joined in what has often been characterized as a race riot, involving acts of law-breaking compounded by existing racial tensions, including looting, assault, arson, and murder. On May 1, 1992, the third day of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, a shaken Rodney King appeared in public before television news cameras to appeal for calm and plead for peace, famously asking, "Can we all get along?".

King's May Day television appearance had a worldwide impact. For example, on May 1, 1993, one year after King's appearance, leftist May Day marchers in Germany carried banners sympathizing with victims of racial violence in the United States, particularly Rodney King.[5] King's May 1 television appearance also impacted many in the United States.

[edit] May Day beatings

This day that "blacks beat on whites" continued, but without publicity until 2003, when an attack by 18 black and Hispanic youths on a 13-year-old white girl made national news.[2] As a result of the court proceedings following the 2003 attack, a judge found that the May Day ritual had been going on for years.[2]

[edit] 2003

On May 1, 2003, school officials and students at Wilbur Wright Middle School separately notified police that "a large fight" was planned for after school near the intersection of Almira Avenue and West 110th street in Cleveland, Ohio.[6][7] Initially, it was believed that police arrived as the attack was under way.[8] However, two police cars were there prior to the attack and when school let out, they saw a large group of students walking in the street on West 110th.[6] From their automobiles, the police warned them to walk on the sidewalk.[6]

Some of the students moved to block the police cars as part of the preplanned attack.[6][7][9] With the police kept at a distance, a pack of twelve girls and six boys, ages 9 through 15, began to run towards Melissa King, a 13-year-old white girl who was a student at Wilbur Wright and was walking home with two friends.[6][7][2] On reaching King (who is not related to Rodney King), one girl grabbed King's hair from behind and yanked her to the ground.[10] Then the black and Hispanic youths, 17 of whom were students at Wilbur Wright,[10] beat, kicked, and choked her.[8] As they pummeled and scratched at King, the attackers called her "honky", "white trash", and "white bitch".[6][11] [12] One attacker was overheard saying, "I hit her and got my stomp in."[7]

By the time police broke up the attack,[10] King suffered serious injuries to her head, arms, face, neck, back, and an eye and experienced dizziness and blackouts that required repeated visits to the hospital.[8][6][13] When the attackers were asked separately by the police officers why the victim was jumped, each one stated, "It's May Day!"[6] They each went on to explain that May Day "is the day blacks beat on whites" and is known as "beat up a white kid day."[6][8][7][14] Others familiar with the attack said that it wasn't personal, but that it was merely in keeping with the May Day tradition where minority children get a "free shot" at white children simply because of their race.[15] Within a few days of the attack, Wilbur Wright school responded by suspending five of the eighteen attackers from school for ten days.[10]

[edit] 2003 fall-out

When the attack was publicized a month later in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, more than 100 readers contacted the newspaper to confirm that the May Day ritual had been alive and well for years and "celebrated" in desegregated communities throughout the United States.[16] Many in their 20s recalled staying home sick from school on May Day in the 1990s or hurrying home to avoid getting hurt.[16] Some teachers did not give homework that day because they knew attendance would be down.[16] Although annual pummelings of white kids by minorities is rooted in certain public schools on Cleveland's West Side,[10][17] the event may have multiple origins. For example, one man recalled that when he served in the military, many of his friends reported participated in or becoming victims of this annual ritual in desegregated communities throughout the United States.[16]

In June 2003, the juvenile justice unit of the Cuyahoga county prosecutor's office filed felonious assault and aggravated riot juvenile charges against the eighteen attackers.[8][18] Noting that the attack was some sort of May Day ritual with the "focus to beat up a white kid," the juvenile justice unit also charged the attackers with ethnic intimidation - a hate-crimes law.[8] In July, Cuyahoga County Juvenile Court Judge Joseph F. Russo entered not guilty pleas and appointed lawyers for the youth, and issued arrest warrants for the four who failed to attend the court hearing.[19] Judge Russo ended the trial on October 2003 with six convictions,[20] but concluded that "based on the evidence I've heard, May Day is reality and the evidence was overwhelming that this was an attack based on May Day and that the victim was chosen because she was white."[2] In drawing such a conclusion, Judge Russo made it clear that white students in Cleveland s integrated public schools have reason to fear assaults by minorities in so-called May Day attacks every May 1.[2][21][22] In acknowledging the existence of Beat Up a White Kid Day, Judge Russo reasoned that "This terrible tradition must be stopped by sending a message."[2]

I'm not really suprised. Disgusted, but not suprised. Some folks just think they are entitled to do whatever they darn well please.

Caucasian Umbrage
Letters published May 30, 2007
Published: May 30, 2007

Racial issues a black-and-white matter? I must take exception to Michelle Hamilton's letter in the May 16 issue of Scene. She says: "As horrible as this country is to black people . . . " In what country do black people have it better than in the United States? In what country do they have better employment, education, health care, and other quality of life? The focus should be on how horrible blacks are to whites in this country.

Ms. Hamilton reveals having attended mostly white schools. I doubt very much these schools had a Beat Up a Black Kid Day. Kids in the predominantly black Cleveland schools have Beat Up a White Kid Day. In The Plain Dealer, Regina Brett reported how May Day is celebrated, with black students beating up on white students. Brett explains how the beatings have become such a tradition that teachers do not even give homework on May Day because so many white children fear to come to school. Cleveland has been a black-run school system for decades. No white-run system would tolerate this.

It is also horrible the way whites have been forced by blacks to flee their neighborhoods. Even the monied white liberals of Cleveland Heights are fleeing for whiter environs ["Paradise Lost," May 21].

Ms. Hamilton also speculates on the "laziness and scheming attitude of white culture." She attempts to depict all whites as belonging to unions that demand "exorbitant wages" and force American corporations to relocate overseas in search of people willing to work hard. But Toyota, Honda, Nissan, BMW and Hyundai all have factories in the United States.

Ms. Hamilton also refers to the "embezzlement and fraud" permeating white culture. No doubt there is corruption in white culture, but in what other culture is there less corruption? Can Ms. Hamilton name a white-run school system where there has been as much corruption as in the Cleveland schools? Can she name a city run by whites where there has been as much corruption as the City of Cleveland?

Seeing Ms. Hamilton using words like "the laziness and scheming attitude of white culture" brings to my mind the way Klansmen used to talk about blacks in the Old South. The South was a backward region for many decades because of these Klansmen. I believe Cleveland is a backward region today because the majority of blacks in this region have the same hateful attitude toward whites that the Klansmen had toward blacks.

http://www.clevescene.com/2007-05-30/ne ... n-umbrage/

This is the first of heard of it.