About a thousand demonstrators entered the Galleria on Black Friday and staged a mass ‘die-in’, shutting down the the mall for at least 30 minutes, the St. Louis American reported. The protestors called the day, ‘Black out Black Friday.’
“We are not supporting businesses that do not support the community that they are in,” demonstrator Johnetta Elzie, told the St. Louis American. “I’m glad that the St. Louis police actually participated in the protest by shutting the mall down for us. That’s great.”
The protestors blended with shoppers, then at 12:30 p.m., they put on Santa hats and sang “Trampled rights,” to the tune of “Silent Night.”
Read the full report in the St. Louis American. Photo by @LBPhoto1 on Twitter.
Gentlemen, please cut the personal attacks, or they will be deleted. Thanks
Many of these comments bring to mind Martin Luther King’s words from the 1963 Letter from the Birmingham Jail: “I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can’t agree with your methods of direct action;” who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a “more convenient season. Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
I am sadden by this event as these people hurt those who were just making an honest living and had nothing to do with their belief of a miscarriage of justice. There are only two people that truly know what happened and to punish people who work for a living just makes no logical sense. By causing contributing members of society to not have the ability to work, I find the protestors have missed their mark.
Denise – Do you feel the same way about the sit-in movement during the Civil Rights Movement? This affected the bottom line of small businesses in the South.
It isn’t right to equate rioting/looting/arson with these peaceful protests at the mall or other businesses. There are only so many avenues for social change, and disrupting commerce is still a valid one. Get the message out where the most people are.
Crime is committed where we live, thus greater percentages of intraracial crime. Throwing that out there is just a talking point to change the discussion.
IMS, the only message I received from your “peaceful” protest is that you and your cronies are a bunch of fools. Isn’t it enough that you attempt to indoctrinate our children through the educational system with your style of social engineering?
Your minor disruptions at the various malls will not take down our capitalistic system, nor will it lead to any “social change”. Commerce will go on. It will take place either at the malls, on-line or any other location where you have a willing buyer and a willing seller.
“Our calpitalistic system”? With billions of dollars of corporate welfare goodies given to corporations each year, it’s not nearly as capitalistic as you think. In fact, a certain s-word comes to mind… oh, that’s right – SOCIALISM! Except that, unfortunately it doesn’t too closely resemble the Scandinavian form of socialism, which doesn’t favor big corps. and has worked very well (in many ways better than the US) for decades. The big corps. are feeding at the trough and are the true welfare queens!
http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-welfare-statistics-vs-social-welfare-statistics/
Warren, you really need to look up the definition of “socialism” before you start throwing that word around.
Letting corporations extort cities and counties out of billions of dollars to not leave – you call that capitalism?? Do you realize that if labor unions did the same thing, people would be up in arms about it, but if corporations do it, no one blinks an eye?
“Extort”…that is another word you need to look up.
Incidentally, and only if I remember correctly, didn’t the UAW conveniently receive billions of dollars in the disguise of a bailout of General Motors and Chrysler?
I enjoy sparring with the misinformed, but not the uninformed.
You don’t know what extort means? LOL. What else would you call it when corps. threaten to leave if the government doesn’t cough up the dough? It’s the classic textbook case of extortion. And it happens all the time. And your example with the UAW I don’t condone, but the huge differences is a). corporate welfare goes on ALL THE TIME, and b). the American public doesn’t even recognize corporate welfare for what it is.
I am fed up with the protests. Burning down and shutting down businesses is inappropriate. People need to make a living to feed their families. Putting employees out of jobs like what happened to Ferguson area businesses is horrible. I no longer have any sympathy for the Brown family point of view. Perhaps criminal behavior is the way to honor the criminal behavior that Michael Brown engaged that day he ended up dead. I originally thought the policeman fired too many bullets – perhaps overreaction. However, I wasn’t there, nor were the rest of us. I’m glad I was not part of the Grand Jury or anywhere near the scene. It’s time for protesters to do constructive things instead of disrupting other peoples’ lives. Get involved in the political scene. Don’t harm the people who are not part of the political or legal system.
This tragedy could have turned into a major peace iniative to bring people together. But the agitators are losers who do not want peace. There was a billboard that was going to go up saying “PANTS UP–DON’T SHOOT.” Fully funded, it was deemed to incendiary. The Bible speaks to dressing for the occasion, as those not allowed into the wedding feast as they had not worn celebratory clothes. The prison offering of sexual attraction is where the pants hanging low comes from; inmates saying they want homosexual sex. Know what you are doing before you do it.
Gary Lee, I just had to laugh when you brought up jobs. As though people defending the status quo have ever been on the side of keeping jobs in America or in poorer urban areas. They’ve been sending all the high-paying (read: union) jobs overseas, and no one says a word. And then people wonder why there is poverty, and gosh, I wonder what could be the cause of all this income inequality and civil unrest?
Teens making babies live better than teens with jobs. Take a guess why, WP.
David, if you believe that, I’ve got some riverfront property in Times Beach I want you to take a look at.
Yes I do believe it, but would have to have actual facts and stats before buying your property. Facts and stats are part of the discretely held welfare benefits expense of tax gross and inclining percent of welfare users.. The reason so many blacks are beginning to succeed is they finally get it: 18 years of benefits make you old and poor at the end of it all. Get real.
Well David, here are some “actual facts and stats” you may want to consider:
$59 billion spent on “regular” welfare, $92 billion spent on corporate welfare
And that’s not even including the trillion dollar Middle East wars, which were all about subsidizing the military industrial complex and the fossil fuel complex. Now, you tell me, should we be more concerned about the minority “welfare queen”, who gets collectively $59 billion per year, or the corporate welfare kings on Wall Street getting their well over $92 billion per year?
http://thinkbynumbers.org/government-spending/corporate-welfare/corporate-welfare-statistics-vs-social-welfare-statistics/
tally that crap up with the Obama dream vacations ever since walking into the wh. How much went out, in excessive interventions, vaca’s and followed by ramped up welfare (to cover the dream). And why were the bo extended family CHERISHED for leaving their vacation in china? going…going.. GONE: ENTITLEMENT from the wh down. You do not make a compelling case when the big picture is calculated….but war & peace…you just keep your eyes closed and dream on…We likely won’t be socialist/communist fast enough for you. Have you ever had a job?? Do you pay taxes? Do you own your own home? Do you take federal assistance in anyway? Do you have health ins., and if so, have you noted any changes? WP, your dichotomous leach of a name is a clear direction to how you think. You are Warren Moore War. Give it up.
David, did you even read the link I provided? That’s the bottom line. The proof is in the pudding. There is much more spent on corporate welfare than on regular welfare, but don’t let the facts get in your way. This has been going on since WAY earlier than when Obama entered the White House. And no, I’m not going to give up. Deal with it.
Ok, so corporate welfare is better than spatter, heavy laden lazy ass welfare? One works. The other gets paid for not working.
I would say the tax system is the real problem–but the govt is the real problem.
there are STILL more people working for what federal gimme’s get for not working—undo that one.
I have no problem with you, except you are a flaming democrat. Give your speeches to welfare democrats, who will cheer you on. Then when blood spilled to keep our country free will be heard in large measure, as you have never learned FREEDOM IS NOT FREE. IT IS AN AMERICAN MILITARY BLOOD COST.
Sorry you don’t get the connections, but it is quite real. If you want to be TOLD what to do, go away from the U.S. We have a crazy “A-H” pres. who has wasted the blood of REAL Americans to bring down democracy. Check your agenda. You will be buried before you know your ideas are dead. READ THE USC. READ THE AMENDMENTS. READ THE FEDERALIST PAPERS Then come back with a re-set of your mind. I don’t usually get this detailed in my responses, but you are so out of commission I did go the full route.
I guess you don’t notice that the multiplier effect from a poor person spending money on clothes, food, etc. is higher than a millionaire spending it on luxury items? Or it’s also likely that he isn’t even investing it in the local economy.
And you just love to call regular welfare “federal gimmes”, but you forgot that corporate welfare is “gimmes” at the federal, state and local level, and amounts to far more than regular welfare (see the link I provided above, that you conveniently continue to ignore).
Freedom isn’t free? I guess you haven’t noticed the trillions of dollars our Military Industry Complex has earned from all these wars in the Middle East. Follow the money. LOL – it was NEVER about spreading democracy there. It’s all about the oil and spending money on tanks, guns, ships, etc.
Got a lot of hot air going on there, don’t you WP? You like to consider yourself among the ivy covered walls, but you espouse lots of “flower-power”, 45 year old rhetoric. And it is very telling for you to question whether “freedom isn’t free”. You, sir are a true fool.
David, that’s not a rebuttal. A true rebuttal would use facts as counterpoints to the arguments I made.
Comments from 45 years ago? Some of you can’t remember lessons learned from long before that. Like Mark Twain said, history doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes.
And I wasn’t questioning whether freedom isn’t free or not. I was questioning freedom from what? We should replace a foreign menace with corporate tyranny?
Warren Peace you are full of worthless words. Carry on by yourself. Your self massaging posts are time wasting. Happy Holidays!
Ethan, vitriol does not a persuasive argument make.
“Fed up” is an understatement. The “Brown Family” was told in Geneva by the judge that their claim was a “waste of the courts time.” The said that police took action against a man who perpetrated a criminal action and was killed in the process. They called the Brown’s search for a ‘human rights violation” both a waste of their time, and an unwarranted sense of “ENTITLEMENT….” This is fact of record. And the UN, who deals with unstable nuclear countries should even have this presented at their forum was–yes, i’ll say it again : “A WASTE OF THEIR TIME.” I am disgusted that MB is dead. But the sense of entitlement to be a criminal and then not be called foul is a waste of everyone’s time. If YOUR life was threatened by someone BOLO’d as a criminal, trying to get your police gun–what would you do? There are many victims in this incident—-not just MB—but the officer and his family and all the police sworn to protect the communities.
I agree with David this tragedy could have been a major step forward to improve racial unrest by exercise of major civil First Am. Rights protests. BUT
MB has come and gone–and his own people have burned and looted his own neighbors and his neighbor=employees.. His family is in the process of re-writing the story of a drug using, strong arming criminal action thief attacking a police officer, who every citizen has the obligation to obey. Nice job non-civil protesters. Why not just spit Michael Brown’s grave. Spit big, just like you burned and looted big. Who is Michel Brown to you anyway? Most of you did not even know him. Everything else you are destroying under the guise of Michael Brown is no different. his promising legacy is what you are really destroying. Happy now? You’ve killed and buried Michael all over again. nice…..
No one will ever stop me from taking advantage of Black Friday discounts.
Fact do not matter to these protester, or they would protest black on black crime.