But wilding -- that is done for fun, for the pure hell of it.
How does one begin trying to understand such behaviour? Indeed, can such behaviour be understand?
The eight youths charged with this outbreak of wilding say their attacks were not racially motivate. The suspects are blak and hispanic. The woman is white. However, the youths say she was singled out simply because they wanted to add a woman to their list of innocent victims. "She wasn't nothing." said one of the youths.
Perhaps one factor at the root of this violence is frustration -- a frustration held by American minorities over unequal opportunities, a simmering anger induced by living, and surviving, in a razor-tough environment.
The adage is true : the rich do get richer and the poor do get poorer, and New York is a perfect example of the two existing side by side in imperfect harmony. Occasionally this tension manifests in apparently race-motivated attacks, such as the Howard Beach riots several years ago.