Anti-racism protests are once again racking Washington, D.C., and attorney Benjamin Crump is involved so it’s time to play “find the lie.”
For more than three weeks now, angry denizens have gathered each night in front of Nellie’s Sports Bar after a video surfaced on social media showing a security guard attempting to eject a patron who had been fighting with others inside.
The initial clip that was posted on Twitter appeared to show Keisha Young, 22, pulled down a set of stairs on her back toward the exit by a man in a security uniform. At the foot of the steps, another man jumps on top of the guard and starts hitting him. Then there’s a pile-on with yet more people.
The incident reportedly took place in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 13. A story in the Washington Post quoted Young as saying, “Instead of reasoning with me, the security guard just bum-rushed me.” As the paper told it, Young “was attacked without warning after she apparently was mistaken for a different woman accused of sneaking in a bottle of liquor from another establishment.”
Benjamin Crump, the illiterate Al Sharpton who allegedly has a law degree, tweeted that Young was “savagely dragged … by her HAIR” and declared that she had been “falsely” accused of bringing the liquor bottle into the bar.
The next day, Nellie’s issued a statement saying it had ended its relationship with the contracted security vendor, that it was investigating the incident, and that it was indefinitely closing. Loud protests gathered nonetheless and left-wing groups in the city put out a set of “demands,” including that the bar “give reparations to the black queer and trans community” and that it remain shut down until all demands were met.
They also wanted the owners to subject themselves to a humiliating public “listening session,” wherein, no doubt, protesters would take turns screaming at them and demanding that they apologize for being white. (This was once known in China as a “struggle session” but in present-day America we call it “listening.”)
Three days after the brawl, though, a second video surfaced showing what happened in the moments preceding what was seen on the first one.
In that second video, Young is seen at the top of the stairs with about three other men who are fighting, plus two security guards intervening. Young is raining blows on one of the men who is trying to cover his head with his arms. As she’s absolutely wilding out in the fight, the guard reaches over the group of men and yanks Young by the shirt down the steps to remove her from the violence that she was actively participating in.
At the protests outside of the bar, activists have said, “We’re not gonna sit here and let black women be disrespected” and chanted, “protected black women, respect black women.” One demonstrator said, “That’s why we out here, because America, because of this white ass establishment, don’t respect black women and they damn sure don’t respect black people.”
But there’s a niggling detail about this whole saga that complicates the cut and dry narrative that Young’s black body was violated by the hands of white supremacy— the man who put his hands on her is also black.
Shouldn’t that make a difference if we’re going to throw around phrases like “white ass establishment”?
I’m not sure it makes a difference, but Nellie’s is a gay bar, and it used to be the most popular one in D.C. Over the years that I’ve lived here — I used to go on weekends — episodes like Young’s with the fighting and rowdy behavior have become common. It’s anecdotal, but in the most recent times I’ve been to Nellies, at least half of the patrons have been black. It wasn’t infrequent for most of them to be.
In essence, I mean that Nellies is not a “white ass establishment.” To the contrary, at this point, it’s almost a predominantly black bar.
But who can blame the protesters? This is what they’ve been taught to do by academia, the national media, the Democratic Party, and all of the entertainment industry. Claim victimhood based on race, gender, or sexual identity; then make demands; and then reap the rewards. The facts don’t matter. The story does, even if it’s fake or, at best, incomplete.
New York Times columnist Charles Blow, who is black, did this exact thing back in 2015 when he made a bunch of noise about his son being held up by police at Yale.
Blow wrote on Twitter at the time that he was “fuming” over a call he received from his son about having been “accosted” and held up at gunpoint because he fit the description of a suspect.
In follow-up tweets related to the incident, Blow said, “This is exactly why I have no patience for people trying to convince me that the fear these young black men feel isn’t real.” He also tweeted the phrases “I can’t breathe” and “Black lives matter.”
In a column for his paper, Blow wrote, “I am reminded of what I have always known, but what some would choose to deny: that there is no way to work your way out — earn your way out — of this sort of crisis. In these moments, what you’ve done matters less than how you look.”
Never did Blow mention a fairly important fact. The officer who held up his son was also black.
No matter. Blow got what he wanted. He became a prominent player in the Black Lives Matter moment that, like today, was burning hot and he was booked on national TV to talk about it. Likewise, Young is pursuing monetary gain by way of a lawsuit.
This is how America operates today. We call it “social justice.”
