12 Likes
Just a coincidence… racism doesn’t actually exist because Dr. King said some nice words and then we all held hands and sang songs and racism stopped… /s
15 Likes
“Jimmy kind of caught the brunt of it. He was a nice guy”. said Eddy Mussallem, a fellow hotelier and longtime friend.
16 Likes
Sounds like Brighton back in the 60’s, with the Mods on Lambrettas and Vespas, and the Rockers on motorbikes, pitching up and starting mass brawls along the beachfront.
Different decade, same old shit behaviour.
So is the racist reaction on display here.
9 Likes
I mean, the same thing happened last year. The spring break panic in 2020 was COVID-themed, and before that I don’t really recall if it was a firm annual thing or if it skipped years, but this is not a new occurence.
Concerned Floridian, “But zoning laws won’t keep black people off the beach!”
4 Likes
And neurons.
3 Likes
You may want to take another swing at that FTFY, because I don’t think you meant to imply that holiday beach violence in those places is less common because mostly white people live there.
Florida IS quite racist, and there are countless examples of white folks in positions of authority here misusing their power or inventing moral panics solely to persecute people of color. No argument there.
Beachside violence during holiday celebrations is not one of those manufactured issues.
The closest beach state park outside my city hits capacity with a very diverse crowd on the 4th of July every year, but I’ve never seen any violence there. The public beach IN the city is mostly white and a complete dumpster fire on that day.
They are tightly controlled to keep out Black people. That’s why it’s 98% white.
Shutting down the beach, filled with Black partygoers, MOST of whom had no connection to the shootings IS in fact racist.
But by all means, keep gaslighting us about how racism isn’t a real thing that impacts decisions like this all the time.
9 Likes
3 Likes
I never said it wasn’t racist. In fact, I’m pretty sure I explicitly said that white folks in charge do exactly that kind of thing all the time; You deliberately chose to omit that part when quoting my post.
Sharing my personal experience as a resident isn’t gaslighting nor a defense of racist behavior, but hey, you do you.
Here…
You said…
It happens often enough that it’s easy to cherry pick incidents and try to label it a racial issue, but that’s BS.
Did you in fact mean that the city was indeed shutting it down because THEY are racist, and the problem of violence is not caused by one racial group? Because if so, it was not clear from what you said. I have no idea who you’re saying is doing the cherry picking (racists or anti-racists) and who is trying to label the VIOLENCE as racially tinged vs. the shutting down of the beach… If you wish to clarify, please do so.
6 Likes
The inaugural Urban Beach Week kicked off in 2001 during Memorial Day weekend, which is traditionally the beginning of slow season for the Beach. True, there were hints the event might prove to have some kinks. It was not centrally organized, largely promoted through word of mouth, and not officially sanctioned by the city. It also catered to college-aged kids, who are typically a bit wilder and less responsible than the general population. Yet there was one other defining feature of the event: It was organized largely for and by African-Americans.
The event started small, but soon national hip-hop acts began making it a regular destination, and the crowds grew. Locals, meanwhile, complained loudly. Restaurants found reasons to close up shop for the weekend. One year, a club on the mainland threw a “white party” during the weekend. City leaders — civic, business, and political — made little attempt to welcome the event and try to improve its organization. Local residents, the majority of whom are white and Hispanic, complained louder. Tensions grew. Police presence increased over the weekend, with Miami Beach PD bringing in officers from other local forces.
The boiling point came in 2011, when about a dozen police officers fired 116 bullets into the car of Raymond Herrisse, a 22-year-old resident of Boca Raton who was driving suspiciously on Washington Avenue at 4 a.m. Police said he shot first. They never presented evidence to that end, but they did find a gun in his car days after the shooting. Police claimed he had clipped an officer on a bicycle with his car.
Police, however, responded by turning South Beach into basically a police state the following year. Watch towers were erected. Checkpoints were set up at the entrance to the Beach, with high-tech cameras scanning the license plate of every car entering. Barriers were placed to deter motorists from driving in residential areas. Police were on every corner. However, this time police weren’t offering “passes” to African-Americans, even the ones who worked on the Beach.
At last year’s event, arrests were down about half from the previous year, but businesses have taken a hit too. Hotel bookings are down about 25 percent from 2011, and other local businesses complain that the weekend is now a dead zone. How did the Beach, as a community, botch things so badly? It’s hard to say that racism wasn’t at least a factor.
4 Likes
I interpreted that as “They try to cherry pick incidents and label them as racial issues. The issues they’re complaining about are not racially based, but they are racist for trying to make it look that way.”
That’s just how I read it, though.
An update on another site says they have now confiscated over 100 guns in the past five days. I don’t think this has to do with race. It has to do with out-of-control gun-toting partiers in general.
If that were the case, there would be states of emergencies all over America, especially in the rural, whiter parts of America… yet it only seems to be here.
But hey, if we ignore racism, it’ll go away, right? /s
8 Likes
Confiscating guns. In Florida.
Sure, that’s not racist at all. /sssss
2 Likes
That’s very unsurprising.
4 Likes
This topic was automatically closed after 5 days. New replies are no longer allowed.
