Philadelphia - While out of town last week, I suddenly started receiving urgent long-distance messages about young black people in Milwaukee acting crazy.

Again.

Last time it happened, I was on vacation during the Fourth of July weekend when a bunch of misbehaving young black people ransacked a gas station convenience store and attacked residents in a park.

This time, I was in my hometown of Philadelphia attending the National Association of Black Journalists convention when my BlackBerry started blowing up with news about what happened Thursday night at the Wisconsin State Fair.

According to reports, it was similar to what happened in Riverwest last month, but on a much more brutal - and scarier - scale.

When people start reporting they were being beaten by black people for no other reason than being white people at the State Fair, that's pretty disturbing.

It's also thuggish and disgusting.

Now that we've got the rough words out of the way, it's time to get some real answers.

I wasn't there - most readers weren't either - so I have to depend on the version from bystanders who called police and the Journal Sentinel newsroom for firsthand accounts.

Nobody seems certain about the size of the groups - I've heard everything from about 30 to 40 all the way up to 300 - and no one seems sure what triggered the incident. I have heard the complaints about rap music at State Fair being a possible culprit, but after learning the featured performer was 1980s star MC Hammer, I'm skeptical.

Real thugs don't listen to MC Hammer.

As I've stated before, I believe some young blacks act out in public because they know how frightening black people appear to some whites and it gives them a sense of power. That's not an excuse for the behavior, but it's a very real component.

It's always embarrassing for law-abiding African-Americans with good children when this stuff happens. I know because I hear from them in the same numbers I hear from white readers who want to blame every black family for raising criminal offspring.

Frankly, the latter group can get pretty tiring.

But I do have real concern for the state of this community, where twice so far this summer there's been a shocking example of mob violence by young black people that can't be explained in any sensible way.

It's interesting that I spent much of last week in Philadelphia, a city that recently has seen its own problems with youth violence involving African-American teens.

For most of the summer, Philadelphia cops have dealt with a series of so-called flash mobs that turned violent, scores of young blacks roaming the center city area and attacking mostly white pedestrians and shoppers.

It's so bad, Mayor Michael Nutter and Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey recently announced a coordinated response to the problem, which involves law enforcement measures, social responses and neighborhood outreach. They're relying on a network of African-American professionals, community leaders and officials in the city to step up to the plate.

On Friday, Nutter said he would increase police street patrols and enforce curfews for young people. The city's curfew ordinance says children under the age of 13 must be home by 10 p.m., and young people between the ages of 13 and 18 must be home by midnight.

The city is taking the flash mobs seriously, particularly the troubling racial dynamic that makes whites most vulnerable to the attacks. And by dealing with the issue in a rational way, my hometown can protect its image and its ability to attract big national conventions like the one I attended last week.

Seeing how the problem with young thugs doesn't seem to be abating, my adopted hometown of Milwaukee needs to follow the same steps.

Hopefully, these flashes of violence can be extinguished so I don't have to worry that each time I leave the city, another crisis involving young black people pops up for me to hear about.

Contact Eugene Kane at (414) 223-5521 or ekane@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @eugene_kane