Sometimes you chase the story, and sometimes the story chases you.
Two weeks ago I’m walkin’ through Century City, the business, residential, and dining district adjoining Beverly Hills. This is familiar territory to me; it’s home. So I know when something’s not right. Like the bus full of black folks that came barreling past me down Avenue of the Stars. And not just any bus; one of those supersize air-conditioned bathroom-in-the-back buses.
I’m not a man who speaks in absolutes, but here’s one I’ll stand by: If a bus full of black people enters an upscale area and nobody on board is wearing a jersey, it’s bad news.
And bad news it was. The bus shat out BLM like a BM. Dozens of angry blacks with placards and bullhorns bellowing, “Whose streets? Our streets!”
As the crowd gathered in front of a high-rise office building, I approached one of the protesters. Walker Edison Furnitur... Buy New $197.99 (as of 05:19 UTC - Details)
“Man, we tryin’ to get face-to-face with a racis’ Jew gentrifier.”
It was only out of self-preservation that I didn’t answer, “Mission accomplished; what can I do for you?”
I’ll go a long way for a laugh, but not that far.
So here’s the gist of the protest. As I’ve mentioned in previous columns, L.A.’s black population has dwindled to just a few remaining areas that could realistically be called “black communities.” It’s a “black belt” that starts south and east of the prosperous Westside and stretches farther south beyond LAX. But those communities are placeholders, destined to be either Hispanic or gentrified within the next decade. And blacks know this.
Now, in that “black belt” there’s a shopping mall that’s often described as L.A.’s last “black” mall—the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza on Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. It’s seen better days, as has the area around it, a skid row of liquor stores, smoke shops, check cashing places, hair extension parlors, and fast-food joints. As for the mall itself, it lost its anchor stores years ago, and there are as many empty retail spaces as occupied.
All looked good. One spiffy new mall coming up!
But then on May 25 a Minneapolis fentanyl freak stopped breathing, and L.A. BLM decided that no “white” or “Jew” firms should be allowed to own L.A.’s last black mall. Facing protests, CIM turned chicken so fast, BLM thugs licked their fingers as if finishing a bucket meal. CIM apologized, screamed “Defund the police,” and pulled out of the deal.
And the asking price of the mall fell considerably. It was now a “troubled property.” Months went by with no serious bids.
In October, in stepped a new Jew, Asher Abehsera, and his billion-dollar urban development company LIVWRK. Abehsera put in a bid of $100 million, and the owners, who at this point really wanted to be free of the hassle, accepted. Abehsera pledged to redevelop the mall with the community in mind. He promised to add housing to the property and consult with community leaders about the look and feel of the renovations.
Following my Century City encounter with the picketers, I began monitoring the Instagram accounts of the “defend Crenshaw Mall” BLM activists. And I saw their call to action to descend upon Abehsera’s house. “If we’re not sleeping because he’s trying to take over OUR neighborhood, we’ll make sure he’s not sleeping in HIS neighborhood either,” one post declared.
I recall reading that and thinking, “I sure feel bad for the poor bastards who live next door to THAT guy!”
Then I saw the address of the protest.
Oh fuck me, he’s a neighbor.
As I said, sometimes you chase the story, and sometimes the story chases you.
So, we had a BLM aktion in my neighborhood a week ago, and it was instructive. It proved a point I made in this column back in October. The black community in L.A. no longer has the size or vigor to protest without the help of imbecilic white leftists. And Antifa doesn’t give two craps about the Baldwin-Crenshaw Mall. With no skinny-jeans white commies taking part, what showed up outside Asher Abehsera’s house was a weak, sclerotic mess of about forty black folks and maybe six white sympathizers who barely had the energy to march in a circle for an hour before calling it a day.