The Kia Boys

Posted By Richard Houck On In North American New Right | Comments Disabled

[1]1,850 words

Last month my car insurance went up by 30%. Nothing at all had changed regarding my policy or use of insurance, so I called my insurance company to ask about the abrupt change. “Our costs have gone up, and we had to make the decision to raise premiums across the company,” is the answer I was given. I asked why their costs had risen so dramatically, and was told that “car thefts are really high right now.”

I suddenly connected the news stories I had seen and the “Kia Boys” social media trend to the sharp ascent of my insurance premium.

Black teenagers stealing cars in cities across the United States made my insurance jump 30%.

Enter the Kia Boys. A Kia Boy is any vibrant American who participates in stealing Kia and Hyundais. Kia and Hyundai are targeted because some of these urban youths figured out that you can easily steal specific models made in the past ten years with little more than a USB cable.

All one needs to do once one gets inside the car is to rip out a piece or two of the plastic panels, which are only secured by plastic clips; break off the ignition lock cylinder; insert the end of a USB cable over the ignition switch; turn; and you’re off with a new (stolen) car. Videos of primarily black teenagers instructing others on this procedure can be found all over the Internet.

Car thefts are up nearly 60% and rising across 30 major US cities. While some news reports call the Kia Boys a gang, that implies a certain level of connectivity that does not in fact exist. It’s more of a trend linked via social-media hashtags and something fun for a particular demographic to do more than anything organized like what gangs tends to do.

“Gang” is often applied to black crime even when the term is inappropriate. It makes the uninitiated think that criminal behavior is something only a tiny portion of the black teenage community is involved in — those in “gangs.” In reality, it is merely blacks behaving normally. For example, I heard there was another “gang fight” at my local mall, but it was simply two groups of blacks who disliked each other — run-of-the-mill young black behavior.

There has been an 85% increase in the theft of the two car brands in Los Angeles over the past year. In Columbus, Ohio, car thefts went up by 22% for the year, with 45% of all cars stolen being either Kias or Hyundais; the theft rate of those particular cars increased by over 450%. That’s about 17 cars a day. The two brands make up 65% of all stolen cars in Milwaukee.[1] [2]

The Kia Boys often leave graffiti or inscribe “Kia Boys” into the car seats or armrests, and when the vehicles are recovered, they usually come back to the owners with extensive body and mechanical damage. Videos of the thieves hitting parked cars, driving over curbs at high speeds, and running into each other for fun explain how this happens. According to the victims, the average cost of repairs in these cases is around $2,500.

It was clear from news reports, social media videos, and interviews that most of the Kia Boys are black.[2] [3] Some are stealing cars to use in serious crimes, burglaries, and drive-by shootings. Others seem to be doing it simply for fun, racing each other around the block and picking up their friends for a joyride.

Several cities are suing or plan to sue Kia and Hyundai over the thefts, blaming the manufacturers for producing cars that lack adequate anti-theft protections. Columbus’ city attorney said that not including anti-theft technology is the “direct cause of the recent explosion of thefts,” and that “Kia and Hyundai’s negligence in pursuit of corporate profit is unconscionable. It’s time we held these automakers accountable for cheating consumers and passing the buck and responsibility to clean up the mess they made onto the rest of us.”[3] [4]

[5]

You can buy Greg Johnson’s The Year America Died here. [6]

Seattle has likewise filed a lawsuit against Kia and Hyundai. Like the others, it alleges the companies “cut corners” on the cars, leading to the thefts and causing millions in damages. The city saw an increase of 363% in Kia and 503% in Hyundai thefts.[4] [7]

Milwaukee, where 10,000 cars were stolen in 2021, is also considering a lawsuit. A city council member said the car manufacturers are not operating as they should, and that the city wants to hold them accountable.[5] [8]

After some research, I found that my insurance company is not the only one raising its rates due to the increasing number of car thefts. Some have decided to no longer accept new customers who own models of cars that are being stolen at high rates. It seems this has become an industry standard in 2023.[6] [9] Millions of people’s insurance rates have gone up — another cost-of-living hike we all pay for the sake of diversity. This one, like many others, is a direct result of living around blacks. I do not own a Kia or Hyundai, but the insurance companies decided that they need to spread the costs among everybody.

Victims of car thefts are upset and feel the courts are doing nothing because of how softly they treat the criminals, many of whom are young and only receiving probation. One judge in a juvenile court stated,

People are looking to place the blame — well, I’m not going to deny it. A little bit of blame can probably go on all of us. But we aren’t here to point fingers. We are here to work forward and work together.[7] [10] [Emphasis added]

A witness to the proceedings said she felt there was a blatant disregard for the victims of the thefts and that judges are blaming the Covid lockdowns for the increasing rate of such crimes, citing a lack of social services. One judge said he would not order restitution to be paid by the black teenage defendants because he would be “practicing prejudice.”[8] [11]

Blaming the automakers is a common theme in this story. When people talk of “holding people responsible,” they seem to mean people other than those actually stealing the cars. We see this in the lawsuits against the automakers, not the teens and their parents.

Kia claims they were trying to reduce costs to make more affordable vehicles, spending the money on reliability instead of anti-theft measures. Instead of finding it laudable that a car company is making decent cars for people who do not have much, they are punished because criminal black teens are taking advantage of them in a low-trust and diverse society.

Kia owners are now concerned about leaving their car anywhere — at work, in their driveway, at the grocery store, or wherever. This is one of the many “taxes” we pay as a society to live alongside non-whites. It seems there is nothing one can do to escape them. You can move away from them, but your insurance rates will still increase to pay for their crimes, and your taxes will nevertheless go up to pay for their welfare. The actual “hidden figures” are the endless costs of having a diverse society with no material advantages to compensate for them.

Blaming the car companies seems tenuous, however. The same liberals who are reluctant to fault the actual criminals and hold any of them accountable are attributing malice to Kia and Hyundai, when in fact it may simply be that they were trying to produce affordable and reliable cars for a demographic that needed both. If I were a juror, it would be difficult to find that it was reasonably foreseeable to Korean car companies that teenage blacks in America would create a viral social media trend that would lead to the stealing of their cars. Society seems to want to have it both ways. They do not want to blame criminal blacks for their stereotypical criminal behavior, but they also do not want to draw any attention to the fact that it is happening, all while expecting that the car designers should be held responsible for not realizing that anything that is easy to steal that winds up near blacks will be stolen.

Not only are black teenagers directly responsible for my own and millions of others’ insurance rates going up, but blacks are a problem on the roadways themselves.

There is a longtime trope about “driving while black.” The liberal argument goes that police pull black motorists over for no other reason than they are black — never because they are violating traffic laws, driving poorly, causing accidents, stealing cars, or the like. Studies such as the now-infamous New Jersey Turnpike Study from 2001 found that blacks were 64% more likely to be speeding than white drivers.[9] [12]

Blacks have a higher vehicle fatality rate than whites by 73%, meaning they are involved in — and thus likely responsible for — an outsized share of fatal car crashes, according to the National Safety Council [13].

A rather extensive study out of the New York Law School called “Driving While Black and Latinx” found over and over, throughout the entire country, that blacks are pulled over more often for traffic violations, driving with a suspended license, and not having insurance than any other racial group. The report, part of a “racial justice project,” framed all this as discriminatory action by police and, more broadly, systemic discrimination. The study is still useful. Instead of assuming blacks were ticketed for speeding and violating other traffic laws because they were black, but because they were speeding and driving recklessly or without a license, we see a much different story emerge. I’m not sure how much of my total car insurance costs are directly associated with living in the same country as blacks; at least 30%, that’s for sure. But it seems to be far more.

Some years ago, after a night out in a very “vibrant” part of town, I wrote, “If you can’t walk into a convenience store at 2:30 AM to get a snack on a Friday night while leaving your car running and unlocked with your girlfriend waiting in it, you don’t live in a free country.”

That has never been truer than it is today — but it now costs even more than it did a few years ago.

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Notes

[1] [16] Jack Fitzgerlad. “As Hyundai/Kia Thefts Grow, 2 Victims of the TikTok Trned Show Us What Happened to Their Cars [17].” Car and Driver. August 27, 2022.

[2] [18] Tommy G. “Kia Boys Documentary (A Story of Teenage Car Theft) [19].” YouTube. May 31, 2022.

[3] [20] Chris Rosales. “Columbus, Ohio City Attorney Says It’s Suing Hyundai and Kia over the Easy-To-Steal Cars [21].” The Drive. November 9, 2022; and Adam Conn & Mark Feurborn. “Kia and Hyundai now face a lawsuit over stolen cars from Columbus [22].” NBC 4. November 7, 2022.

[4] [23] “Kia, Hyundai Face City of Seattle lawsuit over rise in car thefts [24].” King 5 NBC. January 25, 2023.

[5] [25] Adam Rife. “City of Milwaukee considering lawsuit against Kia and Hyundai tied to the rash of car thefts [26].” CBS 58. January 20, 2023.

[6] [27] Jamilah Muhammad. “State Farm, Progressive restrict coverage for some Kia, Hyundai models [28].” Spectrum News 1.

[7] [29] Cole Behrens. “Citizens demand action by Franklin County justice system about rising youth vehicle thefts [30].” The Columbus Dispatch. October 21, 2022.

[8] [31] Interview on file with author.

[9] [32] “N.J. release controversial racial speeding study [33].” CNN. April 2, 2002.