"When The Gang-bangers Are White Guys"

"I have never encountered a gang incident in Chicago remotely like this. The number of perpetrators involved — not to mention the nine deaths — far exceed the typical urban gang-related shooting. Maybe there was some gang incident in Chicago like this decades ago. But this sort of pitched battle? I’ve never heard of anything like it. If these biker gang members were non-white, I think this would cause a national freak out...
Urban gangs and criminal organizations very rarely get into gun battles with police...
Of course, the number of deaths is lower overall with these groups. You don’t have the daily deluge of homicides the way we would in Chicago. But I do think that our views about urban crime are so framed by race and inequality in a variety of ways. When criminal activity seems unrelated to these factors, it doesn’t hit our national dopamine receptors in quite the same way. People tend to view these motorcycle gangs as a kind of curiosity."
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/05/19/when-the-gang-bangers-are-white-guys

Related: "Here's What People Are Saying About The Waco Shootout And Race"

there is this thing where media cutely reference the Sharks and the Jets (which, would they think to do that if it was a Black or Latinx gang?). And it's as if to say 'they are part of America culture, nbd, and later we can make a version of them that appears in a commercially successful movie'.