If you need a conversation starter with your Starbucks’ barista, try this: What’s up with all the black mob violence?

Just as the coffee giant announced its employees would be educating their customers about race relations, (Hash tag: #RaceTogether) large-scale episodes of black mob violence were breaking out across the country.

Starting in Minneapolis, where public officials get very, very testy during the rare occasion when anyone asks about black violence in their tolerant city.

“We don’t keep track of arrestees by race,” said police spokesman William Palmer, which of course is not true. Not even close. “And frankly, no, it doesn’t matter. We arrest and prepare criminal cases for consideration of prosecution for those people who choose to break the law. Race has nothing to do with it.”

This is the opposite of what police say on their web site, where “protected minorities” are promised special treatment to enter, remain and graduate from the police academy.

Police also brag about their special relationships with black groups, including the Black Story Tellers Alliance, African Community Services, Minneapolis Urban League, Minnesota Multicultural Development Center, and other race-based groups.

So after several years of regular and frequent and intense large-scale black mob violence throughout  Minneapolis -- documented in that scintillating best seller, Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry --  police and reporters are finding it increasingly difficult to pretend this is something other than a black thing.

Though they try and try and try.

The kabuki theater of racial denial was on full display on St. Patrick’s Day: Hundreds of “troublesome teens” rampaged through downtown Minneapolis, punching white people, firing guns, destroying property, defying police, stopping traffic and menacing parade-goers. Some of it on video.

Police even held a news conference during the riot, where a spokesman assured reporters that a “majority” of the downtown was under control. And with the assistance of at least three other police agencies, they expected to regain full control at any time.

Reporters seemed oddly reassured by that. Not one asked “What’s up with all this black mob violence in Minneapolis?” Maybe they can ask their baristas.

People who were actually in the middle of the violence were a lot less squeamish about reporting some of the details:

Seth Kaplan, a member of the NE Minneapolis Crime Watch, posted a video on that group’s Facebook page of hundreds of black people rampaging through the downtown. “It's a mess downtown,” Kaplan said. “Just utter disaster.”

One reader of the KARE news web site who identified himself as John Smith chipped in: “It was NOT a bunch of teens fighting each other. It was black thugs shoving and sucker punching white people. Left a mess behind. I WAS THERE.”

His comment drew dittos from Nicole Besos. “I was there tonight with my 4 yr old daughter. It was so scary.”

“I work security downtown in a building on Nicollet Mall, I can't share what building but, it is located right in the middle of it all,” said Mark Dahl. “I would just like to add, that the entire thing was disgusting, embarrassing, scary, chaotic, and insane. I estimated probably 200 young teens running around like animals.”

At the end of the festivities, “approximately” six black people were arrested. The rest were put on buses and sent home.

It also happened in Kansas City: large groups of black people were destroying property, confronting police, creating chaos, all near the St. Patrick’s Day parade.

“It’s almost an annual ritual, just like the parade nearby” said Eli Rosenberg of KMBC TV in Kansas City. “Just like the chaos that follows. One local business had to lock its doors when things got a bit crazy.”

Rosenberg convinced Joe Schooley to go on camera and talk about what he saw in front of his business: “Some of the young ones were unruly,” Schooley said. “They were jumping on cars, running from one car, jumping on the next. Cops were trying to disperse them, they would not listen and were giving them a hard time. Cops started bear-macing them.”

Bear mace: The chemical repellant used on large, angry carnivorous animals.

“Bricks and rocks were also thrown until police moved in to break up the gathering,” said the station. Some of it on video: the violence and denials and aftermath.

Black mob violence is also a regular feature of life in Kansas City. So much so, the city council imposed a curfew to quell similar disturbances at the city’s upscale County Club Plaza entertainment district.

Rosenberg reminded viewers of the curfew, but he did not mention the prophetic words of former Mayor -- now congressman -- Emanuel Cleaver, who warned against curfews because “all we are going to do is make a lot of black kids angry.”

Not to worry, Congressman Cleaver. Public school officials in Chicago have found a way to deal with the whole black anger and violence thing in a way that seems to make them less angry and violent. At least for a while.

A large group of black students recently gathered there to talk about how black people are relentless victims of relentless white racism, all the time, everywhere and that explained everything. They did it during a “Black Lives Matter” assembly, without the presence of another troublesome group: White people.

The local papers were happy to go along with the school superintendent who said excluding white students would make it easier for black students to express their racial resentment and hostility. “Principal Nathaniel Rouse, the assembly's organizer, said he thought black students would speak more freely among members of their own race, a model known as affinity grouping,” said the Pioneer Press.

Voila!

A new euphemism is born: Affinity grouping!

For anyone complaining about this separate but equal affinity, school officials have answers for that too: "Not everything is about us,” English teacher Paul Noble told the Pioneer Press. “Not everything needs to have our stamp of approval, much less our participation. Can we just check our white privilege for a minute? I don't know why a white affinity group is necessary to make a black affinity group palatable."

One white parent, Karen Steward-Nolan, made bumper stickers in support of the racially segregated assembly: “She understands some parents felt their children were aiding the cause of black students by wanting to participate in the assembly,” said the Pioneer Press. "The important part of being a white ally is to know when to be quiet and listen," she said.

Give that woman a press credential.

Meanwhile on St. Patrick’s Day in St. Louis, another center of regular and frequent black mob violence and denial, police met with property owners to “look for answers to teen violence downtown.” 

“We’ve made arrests every weekend for the last couple weeks,” said police Captain Karen Arnett, she said to a local TV news operation. “We’ve banned kids, too, but they will still come down here and they will still behave in an unruly manner.”

It is unknown whether the grinders at Starbucks in Stamford will talk about the five black people who attacked a Hispanic immigrant, stabbing him to death. Also on St. Patrick’s Day, the local papers said the immigrant bumped into the group of black people and spilled coffee on them. There’s that coffee thing again.

In Chicago also on St. Patricks’ Day, columnist Clarence Page proudly wrote that the recent case of the college students singing racist songs is proof that young white people are just as racist as their relentlessly racist parents. And that explains everything, all the time, everywhere.

Including Starbucks.

Colin Flaherty is an award winning reporter , and best selling author of Don’t Make the Black Kids Angry: The hoax of black victimization and those who enable it. He prefers a nice cup of Starbuck’s French Roast blend.