The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Beach Lives Matter? Black Leaders Say Miami’s Curfew Is RAAAAACIST!

Posted on | March 22, 2021 | Comments Off on Beach Lives Matter? Black Leaders Say Miami’s Curfew Is RAAAAACIST!

When I reported Saturday that Miami Beach had imposed an 8 p.m. curfew because of spring break mayhem (“Miami Beach Mayor: ‘If You’re Coming Here to Go Crazy, Go Somewhere Else’”), I wondered if anyone else noticed the demographic of the rowdy scene on South Beach:

After weeks of uninhibited partying on South Beach by spring breakers, police turned away throngs of people — many of them Black — from world-famous Ocean Drive with a SWAT truck, pepper balls and sound cannons.
The tactics were intended to enforce an 8 p.m. curfew announced only hours earlier on Saturday to rid the city of what police and politicians have described as unruly and sometimes violent late-night crowds. . . .
But the use of force to clear out people of color from South Beach alarmed some Black leaders. And if Miami Beach has openly recoiled at the behavior of at-times chaotic crowds filling the city’s entertainment district every weekend, some in South Florida are having a similar reaction to the way the city and its police have handled the presence of thousands of people of color.
“I was very disappointed,” Stephen Hunter Johnson, chairman of Miami-Dade’s Black Affairs Advisory Committee, said Sunday morning. “I think when they’re young Black people [on South Beach], the response is, ‘Oh my God, we have to do something.’” . . .
Miami Beach Police Chief Richard Clements told the Miami Herald on Sunday that Saturday night’s incident would be reviewed internally. . . .
But at a time when the country is undergoing a racial reckoning, the optics of police officers grappling with crowds and city leaders condemning a largely Black group of visitors has been unavoidable. Daniella Pierre, president of the NAACP’s Miami-Dade chapter, tweeted “#SpringBreakingWhileBlack” on Saturday night. She later added: “Unacceptable to say the least.” . . .
Even before Saturday night’s confrontation between police and party-hungry crowds, frustration with the way the city was policing — and talking about — spring break crowds on South Beach was growing among local Black leaders. DeAnne Connolly Graham, a member of Miami Beach’s newly formed Black Affairs Advisory Committee, told the Miami Herald Friday that “we have to realize that we are definitely fighting an undertone of racism” among the city’s largely white resident base, some of whom have called Black spring breakers “thugs” or “animals” on social media.

Gosh, I wonder why people would say such things?




 

Category: Uncategorized

Comments

Comments are closed.