Now they tell us.
For months, academics and the media have lambasted concerns about “teen takeovers” as racist dog-whistling. It turns out that when blacks are the target of a takeover rather than the perpetrators, however, they react as negatively as other targets.
A Latino running club announced that it would be “taking over” a historically black neighborhood in South Central Los Angeles for a 5K run. The event would take place in a public park.
An uproar ensued.
Latinos were invading a sacred black space and had not sought a permit to do so, the opponents claimed. The phrase “taking over the streets” was disrespectful. Defenders of the event got hate mail online.
The run organizer apologized profusely and moved the event from Leimert Park to Elysian Park several miles away.
The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times could not be accused of being “disrespectful;” they treated claims of geographic and racial solidarity with utmost seriousness, as such claims always are.
As usual, racism is one-way street.