New Orleans, LA: Out of Town Far-Right ‘Stickmen’ Confronted by Parade

On Saturday July 29, a bunch of assholes from the suburbs and other apartheid states came back to New Orleans to protest various fictions. Apparently, they enjoyed unsuccessfully blocking the removal of some corny white supremacist statues so much, they came back to fundamentally misunderstand tourism some more.

Their ignorance jamboree was organized by a beyond minor right-wing internet personality, “The Black Rebel,” who peaked on May 1st when a live stream of him macing himself, yelling incoherently at a military surplus truck, and generally acting like a fool made the Southern right wing news. It was shared by lots of people on Facebook who say tough guy stuff and spend most of their time fantasizing about shooting home invaders. He made a go at being a full time paid protester by reliving his glory days in New Orleans with an Anti-Sharia Law/Anti-Sanctuary City/Pro-Impotent Fear Rally here this past weekend. He summoned about thirty genuinely awful people to join him, naming their LARP ‘The Battle of New Orleans 3: Return of the Patriots’ and began making a bunch of noise about killing Antifa. (It is worth noting that our adversary came with a war chest of $29 for this trip through his FundtheRight account.)

We saw this terrifying maelstrom of masculine rage, the guttural challenges they near incoherently barked across the internet, and organized ourselves a butterfly brunch with free mimosas in response. Other folks around town did other stuff. They were pretty good mimosas, but maybe had too much orange juice in them. There was glitter and nice food and families. We advertised it as a, “Brunch in Solidarity with Immigrants and Migrants,” and got a decent crowd despite the rain. I recommend having a public brunch and especially recommend giving away cases of champagne; it’s what I imagine buying an entire crowded bar a round is like.

Someone, somehow, built gorgeous, aggressively soft butterfly floats. They were pushed by some folks in a parade, accompanied by a sound cart playing Frieda and Missy and a various other titans. We arrived at the Mint building where our enemies were working themselves into a lather, and there was confrontation. They opened things, throwing a brick dead at the first people that arrived. Our kind-spirited butterflies took a dent but held fast in protecting us. Eggs manifested and silly string appeared across their banners to impotent ignorance. There were scuffles and chanting, some nice songs and “The Black Rebel” pepper-sprayed himself again while shouting that silly string was a potentially blinding assault weapon, which I chalk up as a win. We substantially outnumbered the out-of-towners, had a fantastic brass band, and looked real goofy in our costumes. We parted ways mostly victorious, leaving the floats standing on Esplanade with all the swagger of a community that could field a dozen more in a couple weeks and barely feel it.

Mardi Gras Krewes, Social Aid and Pleasure Clubs, and especially Mardi Gras Indian krewes have historically brought together communities of people with diverse sets of skills, goals, and roles. They by their nature can support a broad diversity of tactics and shelter their members in the anonymity of costumed spectacle. It seems worthwhile to build a protest that’s a parade, to make it a better time to march with us than watch us. A parade can also be bright skirts under which our bolder sisters can hide and do their mischief. If this looks like a party, it’s because it is a party.

When we burn down the goddamn plantation, it’s gonna be a bonfire and all our friends are gonna be there.

Too Soft To Be Shook

New Orleans, August 2017