Black Lives Matter Louisville Uses Intimidation Tactics On Local Business Owners To Further…Social Justice
[guest post by Dana]
A Cuban business owner who came to the U.S. on a raft when he was just 18 years old took to the street to protest the intimidation tactics he (and other local business owners) face from Black Lives Matter. That’s a mighty nice restaurant you’ve got there. It’d be a shame to see something happen to it:
More than 100 members of Louisville’s Cuban community gathered at La Bodeguita de Mima, 735 E. Market St., Sunday to rally in support of the immigrant-owned restaurant.
The rally came after a controversial letter from Black Lives Matter protesters laid out demands that aim to improve diversity in NuLu, which is known for its locally owned shops and restaurants.
Fernando Martinez, a partner of the Olé Restaurant Group, publicly denounced the letter’s demands on Facebook, calling them “mafia tactics” used to intimidate business owners. On Thursday, a small group of protesters gathered outside his restaurant, La Bodeguita de Mima, in protest.
“La Bodeguita is open to everybody,” Martinez said. “If you’re gay, this is your home. If you’re Black, this is your home. If you’re white, this is your home. If you’re human, this is your home.”
He also condemned the criticism his business had received over diversity concerns.
“How can I be called a bigot and a racist when my family is Black? When my son is gay?” he asked. “I’m the proud father of a gay son, and I’m gonna fight for him against anybody.”
Some of BLM’s demands included that
…NuLu businesses adequately represent Louisville’s Black population by having a minimum of 23% Black staff, purchasing a minimum of 23% inventory from Black retailers or donating 1.5% of net sales to a local Black nonprofit or organization and requiring diversity and inclusion training for all staff members on a bi-annual basis.
How is this not a shakedown hiding under the guise of social justice? Because the question is: what happens if the businesses refuse to meet the group’s demands? While the Social Justice Rating System seems childish to me given that local businesses will be slapped with a rating of either an A, C, or a failing F if they don’t meet demands, I want to know what, if any, further consequences there will be for the non-compliant? Protests in front of their businesses? Efforts to drive away customers? Shut down their businesses?
Apparently, the gentrification of the area was the catalyst for the BLM action:
At the root of the protesters’ demands is the request that business owners acknowledge the harm brought on Black residents when they were displaced from NuLu and the adjoining Phoenix Hill neighborhood during the demolition of the Clarksdale housing project in the early 2000s.
The 65-year-old complex, which abutted NuLu on Jefferson Street, was torn down in 2004 and replaced with mixed-income housing that became known as Liberty Green.
According to a 2009 Courier Journal article, just 41 of the roughly 635 families who’d been displaced at Clarksdale returned to the new development.
An activist associated with BLM explains that the intimidation tactics weren’t meant to be threatening, but were intended as a conversation starter:
Phelix Crittenden…said the demands and related “NuLu social justice health and wellness ratings” were not meant to be a threat but were instead intended to start a conversation with owners about how their businesses can better reflect and support Black people.
Crittenden said several NuLu business owners have volunteered to sign a contract created by the protesters and are open to discussing their roles in gentrification.
…
“How you respond to this is how people will remember you in this moment,” Crittenden said. “You want to be on the right side of justice at all times.”
Our target was no accident https://t.co/ajRN5v88ro
— BLM Louisville (@BLMLouisville) August 1, 2020
Fernandez Martinez summed up his feelings about the matter in a public Facebook post:
There comes a time in life that you have to make a stand and you have to really prove your convictions and what you believe in… All good people need to denounce this. How can you justified (sic) injustice with more injustice?
This gross misstep will not help further the cause of the BLM group. Hard-working business owners do not take kindly to being intimidated and possibly having their livelihoods threatened. Especially people of color who struggled through hardships unknown to the majority of us to make their way to these shores. It is both possible to be sympathetic to a number of concerns the Black community at large has expressed, yet strongly disapprove of BLM’s misguided tactics in Louisville.
–Dana
Strong-arming minority-owned businesses is simply not a helpful way to further your cause.
Dana (292df6) — 8/3/2020 @ 11:38 amThe
Candy ManUmbrella ManWho can take a city
(who can take a city)
Burn it to the ground
(burn it to the ground)
Keep the fake news flowing as the turd becomes a mound
The Umbrella Man
(the Umbrella Man)
Oh, the Umbrella Man can (the Umbrella Man can)
The Umbrella Man can
‘Cause the media lies
Ev’ry time they make a sound
(ev’ry time they make a sound)
Who can take a protest
(who can take a protest)
Wrap it in a riot
(wrap it in a riot)
Soak it in some sh*t
They’ll beat your ass, so just be quiet
The Umbrella Man
Colonel Haiku (fc723d) — 8/3/2020 @ 11:44 am(the Umbrella Man)
Oh, the Umbrella Man can (the Umbrella Man can)
The Umbrella Man can
‘Cause the media lies
Ev’ry time they make a sound
(ev’ry time they make a sound)
Was the “misstep” that they exposed their true intentions?
BuDuh (9d1385) — 8/3/2020 @ 11:44 am3… heh… they’ve been stumbling since they crawled out from under their rock.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 8/3/2020 @ 11:58 amThere seems to be a lot of this sort of gangsterism going around:
Trump Says U.S. Government Should Get Slice of TikTok Sale Price
Dave (1bb933) — 8/3/2020 @ 12:00 pm(pay walled)
It’s a bit tricky. They have to be careful not to get too explicit, but at the same time the business has to get the message. Maybe a video that styles itself as fiction might do it. The Mafia had this same problem. Hollywood helped.
Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b) — 8/3/2020 @ 12:12 pmYep, a shakedown, a minority-on-minority shakedown. The irony is that Mr. Martinez probably fled Cuba to escape shakedowns from the powers that be.
Paul Montagu (1ef895) — 8/3/2020 @ 12:21 pmShakedowns like that would be an improvement in Cuba.
Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b) — 8/3/2020 @ 12:23 pmBLM believes in the broken windows theory of policing…
..and that’s why they break windows.
Sammy Finkelman (fe6a9b) — 8/3/2020 @ 12:24 pmAn activist associated with BLM explains that the intimidation tactics weren’t meant to be threatening, but were intended as a conversation starter:
I understand that “Stick ‘Em Up” is also a conversation starter.
Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 8/3/2020 @ 1:40 pm@10 True! and “This is a nice shop you have here. Be a real shame if something happened to it.” is just pure well wishing.
Context matters.
Time123 (ca85c9) — 8/3/2020 @ 1:43 pmImagine if a bunch of right-wingers had done this. I’m pretty sure the media would be wetting their pants. But since it is a bunch of Democrats acting like the mafia, the media will downplay this.
This why we have the 2nd amendment. Hope this business owners can protect themselves from the New Democratic Mafia.
Hoi Polloi (dc4124) — 8/3/2020 @ 3:08 pmwhat do you reckon the may 19th movement as well as the black liberation army, did for a living, extort businesses and bomb federal buildings,
narciso (7404b5) — 8/3/2020 @ 3:40 pmI understand that “Stick ‘Em Up” is also a conversation starter.
Bored Lawyer (56c962) — 8/3/2020 @ 1:40 pm
That is some nk level humor! Bravo!
norcal (a5428a) — 8/3/2020 @ 5:11 pmIf it looks like extortion and it smells like extortion and it walks like extortion, it probably isn’t just a conversation starter.
Nic (896fdf) — 8/3/2020 @ 5:30 pmSmall potatoes, and old and moldy too. Jesse Jackson pulled this stunt on Coca-Cola around 40 years ago and Coca-Cola caved. His successor at Rainbow PUSH tried to pull it on Nike ten years later and Nike handed him his head. These small-time grifters pulling it now … all that restaurant needs is some roach powder.
nk (1d9030) — 8/3/2020 @ 6:00 pmYou’re right, Nic. It’s not hard to see that this could easily lead to more heavy-handedness, direct intimidation, veiled threats, etc. If activists are so far off the mark on what constitutes a “conversation starter,” and think this is it, then anything is possible.
I hope that other chapters of BLM denounce this tactic, but I doubt they will.
Dana (292df6) — 8/3/2020 @ 6:01 pmnk,
I would say a significant difference between now and 40 years ago, is that the majority of Americans are sympathetic to the cause of the Black community now (including BLM). Although not everyone endorses BLM (and I don’t recognize them as the arbiter of all things Black), I think it would be very unpopular for anyone to publicly criticize them. Forty years ago, there was less risk in doing so, especially if you were a company, corporation, or public figure.
Dana (292df6) — 8/3/2020 @ 6:03 pmI don’t recognize them as the arbiter of all things Black
This is a line I should commit to memory, as I have a feeling it may come in handy sometime.
norcal (a5428a) — 8/3/2020 @ 6:16 pmThis is repulsive and a purely evil intimidation tactic. Reminds me of what Sharpton did to the Orthodox Jewish community.
Dave, other than your non sequitur, care to comment of the topic at hand?
NJRob (eb56c3) — 8/3/2020 @ 6:17 pmCol. With respect to the poetry.
Sammy Davis Jr is one of my all time hero’s in life. I got to meet him after a show when I was a kiddo, What a mensch.
Despite all he endured he always had a positive energy that just shined through him.
I wish people could remember him for more than Candy Man. Not my favorite although he had the chops to pull it off.
We need more people like him in the world.
A good number of his performances can be found still. Recently I listened to Shadow of Your Smile which he recorded with just him and guitar. Also Birth of the Blues and a video of him playing drums and vibes. That guy could swing.
Ah well thanks for reminding me about him.
Echo (e92c55) — 8/3/2020 @ 7:33 pmAllahpundit examines Trump’s extortion scheme in more detail.
Dave (1bb933) — 8/3/2020 @ 7:40 pmLets talk influence schemes
https://mobile.twitter.com/benktallmadge/status/1288264938520104960
Narciso (7404b5) — 8/3/2020 @ 8:02 pm“ Evidently, this news didn’t cut it for Univision or Telemundo, so MRC Latino reproduces it herein, one: to let you know, and two: as a shining example of the double standard at the Hispanic news outlets that only go after the issues and incidents aligned with its political agendas.
For the Hispanic nets in the United States, attacking, vandalizing and disturbing a popular Cuban food restaurant in Louisville, Kentucky, is simply not newsworthy. For them, it is just as worthless as the fact that many Hispanics employed by La Bodeguita de Mima were left without income thanks to the tactics of harassment and persecution by leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement- in this case, the collection of the “revolutionary tax”- a tactic also deployed by Marxist FARC revolutionaries.”
https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/latino/kathleen-krumhansl/2020/08/03/spanish-nets-omit-blm-extortion-hispanic-business
harkin (5af287) — 8/3/2020 @ 8:23 pmSo I’ll take your repeated off topic posts as a “no comment” Dave.
NJRob (03cb1f) — 8/4/2020 @ 3:03 amSo is this evidence 1-A of which latter summer phenomena:
a. backlash against BLM
b. black sick-out because the Dem beat a black challenger in the primary
c. he’s really just a squish, no worries
d. he finally put on a darn mask
http://news.yahoo.com/poll-shows-mitch-mcconnell-large-111452939.html
If its “b”, this will be used to scare Biden by those insisting on a black VP
urbanleftbehind (8a16ee) — 8/4/2020 @ 5:13 am