The anti-mosque group showed up in camouflage, carrying guns and an American flag, FOX 4 reported. They left soon after and the protests ended without incident.
“It’s a people’s victory here in South Dallas today,” said Yafeuh Balogun of the Huey P. Newton Gun Club, named for the founder of the original Black Panther Party.
Balogun, who helped organized the counterprotest, added that he wasn’t “surprised” the group withdrew when confronted by the emotional crowd.
“Would you come out and face them?”
From: Armed clash over black mosque triggers anger in South Dallas | | Dallas Morning News
I’m glad to see that when a bunch of armed lunatics stage a protest, they can now count on another band of armed lunatics staging a counter-protest.
Surely this will end well.Report
And yet no shots were fired, this desipte liberals insisting that people being allowed to carry firearms in public will turn our steets into blood soaked wild west.Report
Yeah, wow. One protest, no shootings. This proves that public display of firearms is not dangerous.Report
“The only thing that’ll stop white guys protesting with guns are black and brown guys counterprotesting with guns.”Report
Based upon that comment alone you should be for easing gun restrictions in majority minority cities like Baltimore, DC, Chicago, etc. to protect the minority folks from the angry white mobs, no?
Yah, didn’t think so.Report
Damon, my comment was more a dig at white guys with guns and NRA-style “good guys with guns” logic.Report
Weren’t there some civilians folks that went to Ferguson MO after the troubles to patrol the streets? I remember there was a lot of liberal hand wringing that there would be shoot outs but there were none.Report
Groups of Oath Keepers did indeed go to Ferguson armed and with the intent of keeping journalists and, at least in some cases, protestors from being harmed by the police. I know some were advocating that black protestors exercise their right to carry firearms under Missouri law. I have very ambivalent feelings about the politics of the Oath Keepers but, to the extent they were raising the potential cost of police violence, I think they did the right thing.
Anti-gun right progressives I don’t think realize that they’re played by the state and establishment media with images of gun toting rednecks the same way conservatives are by conservative media with images of armed minorities in the ghetto. The winner in each case is those forces of the state that would prefer we all had a lot less leeway to exercise our rights generally.Report
Surely if nobody was hurt this time, that proves what these people were doing wasn’t irresponsible or dangerous. I think there’s a somewhat plausible argument that all involved were just exercising their First and Second Amendment rights, but just because something is legal and even guaranteed by the Constitution doesn’t mean it’s not stupid.Report
No it only proves that liberals are wrong when they say open carry weapons will only lead to blood soaked streets.Report
What liberals make that specific argument?Report
This liberal makes the opposite argument.
That instead of the fantasy of poor black people bravely defending their rights with guns, and watering the tree of liberty with the blood of Klansmen, what actually happens on planet earth is that poor black people wisely grasp that in any armed encounter with white people, the black person is by default the criminal, and the white person the innocent victim.
So open carry becomes yet another tool in the arsenal of entrenched racism, allowing white people to parade around with guns, while black people get shot for merely holding one.
The government can just as effectively repeal the 2nd Amendment via selective prosecution, as it can by legislation.Report
Really? Name one instance where an organized, armed protest by black people was antagonized by the police.
There is no inconsistency in wanting to have stricter gun regulation and simultaneously not wanting black folks to disarm unilaterally under the current laws. This is a clear case of Cleek’s law on the left.Report
Kazzy:
Almost every time folks talk about loosening gun laws, like those for carrying fire arms, you hear end of the world pronouncements from liberals. Oddly, none of them ever come to pass.Report
The article seems rather fair but the headline is strange. Who clashed? Who is angry? Did the clash trigger the anger or vice-versa?Report
The anti-mosque group showed up in camouflage, carrying guns and an American flag.
There’s nothing worse than a bunch of bigots wrapping themselves in the flag and pretending that their intolerance has something to do with defending freedom. So I’m angry, and probably some other people too.Report
Are they even pretending to be defending freedom? In this context (as in most), the flag strikes me more as a symbol of nationalism than of freedom. Do an image search for German or Japanese nationalists, and you’ll see them waving their flags around. I don’t think anyone really associates those with freedom.Report
In most countries, people that wave national flags are typically associated with nationalists and xenophobes. It’s one of the things that Europeans and other foreigners find odd about the US.Report
Sure, because you never see Europeans or other foreigners waving their own countries’ flags around, just these racist ‘mericans.Report
FFS, notme, the comment is the exact opposite. Outside of sporting contexts, like the World Cup, you don’t typically see ordinary Germans or Brits waving their flags. It’s not that they think Americans are racist, it’s that they find it strange that large numbers of ordinary Americans and immigrants display and wave flags around because in their home countries, that behavior is typically limited to their racists and nationalists.
You have a bigger persecution complex than the most stereotypical SJW.Report
I’ve had conversations with Canadians about this.
Tangentially, a while back I wanted to use the Red Ensign for something. Had to ask Jonathan McLeod if there were any sketchy connotations to doing so. (The answer was mostly no.)Report
Of course, the Union Jack is shorthand for Rock-n’-Roll.
Then again . . .
Def Leppard? A bunch of old white guys.
The same thing that is the cause of everything else that is wrong with this world.
The Who?
Rinse, repeat.
Etc.Report
I think there’s a lot more historical and cultural unpacking that needs to be done if you want to argue a parallel. This isn’t to say that American nationalism has never been used for anything bad or that no one has ever wrapped themselves in the American flag to promote ugly policies. However there’s also a sort of civic religion around immigration and assimilation in America that doesnt exist in most old world countries.
Thats without getting into the 20th century political movements that occurred in Europe that are the root of discomfort with displays of national flags.Report
Don’t get me wrong… I think anger is justified by the counter-protestors. But referring to a group as “angry” — especially a group comprised primarily of people of color or other marginalized people — is often a means of delegitimizing them. So, again, I’m trying to make sense of the headline. And while the headline only matters so much, it still matters. Especially in this day and age.
Both groups seem angry. Are their angers of equal legitimacy? Of equal magnitude? If we are only referring to one group as angry, why? What impact does that have on how we interpret this event?Report
So we know you can’t use the words “thugs” or “angry” to describe black people even if they accurately describe them. But calling white men angry is always ok.Report
WWSPLCD?Report
Call anyone who doesn’t donate to the Morris Dees Retirement Fund a dangerous racist extremist right wing separatist militia klan?Report
Label the New Black Panther Party and the Nation of Islam as extremist groups…?Report
Strawman, party of one.Report
No, in recent posts you’ve made it perfectly clear that calling blacks “thugs” is inappropriate even if they act that way.Report
Who clashed? Who is angry? Did the clash trigger the anger or vice-versa?
Hey, why jump to the conclusion there was any anger involved? 🙂Report
Reminds me of a Dana Gould line, “My favorite old horror movie title is Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman because it didn’t just assume that they would fight.”Report
Well, I’m responding to the headline with explicitly mentions the anger.Report
*sniff*
God bless ‘merica.
Krystal Muhammad, you go girl.Report