A.C. Protest Turns Absolutely Awesome

An event yesterday was supposed to unite Atlantic City’s black community, but — whoops! — the Labor Day protest ended with four arrests.

Steve Young, an aide to Atlantic City Councilman Steve Moore (thanks for having non-confusing names, guys), said there would be 200 people at the protest. Instead, 10 showed up. But, wait, it gets better. The Press of Atlantic City writes that the protesters jumped up to a stage adjacent to one where a city-sponsored concert was being held. Then “King Jamir Shabazz, 37, a New Black Panther, began shouting racial epithets into the microphone, targeting white and black people in the crowd.”

“If you’re not willing to stand up, black men and black women, then get the hell in the river and drown with the jelly fish,” Shabazz shouted.

Yes, get the hell in that river right on the east coast of Atlantic City! With the jellyfish!

Things got a little funnier even after that; if any of the people who recorded it want to release video, please do so immediately.

City resident Jill Cason, who is black, began shouting at Shabazz for using derogatory language in front of children in the audience. She soon was engulfed in a heated argument with protester Derwood Pinkett. Meanwhile, band members periodically struggled to strip Young and Shabazz of their microphones.

“This here is wrong!” the city’s special events coordinator, Shiela Harvey, shouted into the microphone. “You can’t tell me this is decent! It’s not!”

As rifts between the audience and the protestors [sic] grew, Young continued to try and reach out to them.

“They’re not going to let us fight each other today,” he said. “We know who the real enemies are.”

Soon after, the microphones used by Young and Shabazz were disconnected, prompting Shabazz to continue yelling into a bullhorn while the band drowned him out with their rendition of “Celebrate Good Times.”

“To hell with celebration!” a muted Shabazz shouted.

The cops then settled it all by asking people in the crowd if they were being annoyed and then arresting four people when the crowd said they were indeed a bit annoyed by annoying people. Sometimes you just hate everything so much you just have to come back around and love it all again.

Labor Day rally unravels into epithets, arrests in Atlantic City [Press of AC]
[Photo by yorgda, Creative Commons license]