Tea Party Part Deux

Two weeks ago, I wrote about my encounter with the tea party. Today, I made a second stand as a lone protester with the same sign as before. This time, Long Island Wins was there to cover it.

Yet this may be my last time protesting there.  After the protest was over, I was shaken; a tea partier threatened my life.

I arrived at around 12:20 P.M. crossing the street to put my sign “Amnesty Now!” “Stop the Hate! to counter the anti-immigrant message signs they had. Curiously, there were no anti-immigrant signs visible today. Well, they were visible, but piled on top of each other on the ground so that no one could see them. It’s likely that they took them down once they saw me crossing the street. But then the insults began to fly, more vitriolic than the time two weeks ago. Here is how it went, in as best of an order that I can remember.

First, as last time, they tried hard to block my sign by surrounding me and following me up and down the street.

Then, a woman asked me: “Are you an Arab?” As that was a preposterous question to ask, I responded with a joke(they didn’t realize it was a joke), saying that “Yes, I was an Arab, from Egypt.” Then, loudly, several of them began to chant: “Allah is a Faggot”, and that “I should be in Guantanamo with the rest of them”. You many see me on the video repeating what they said so that it was down for the record. Oh, I am not Arab, or Muslim; I am a lapsed Catholric.

Then one of the men there said something like the following(can’t remember exact sequence)–“we should be for abortion because the world would be better off if your parents had one”. I indignantly responded that it was quite outrageous to wish someone to be never born because they have a different political opinion. The same man then went on to imply that “I should have a bullet in my head”.

Those were the most egregious insults; there were many smaller ones along the way. But towards the end is when I stopped having fun and became worried.

One of the men(not the one who said the abortion stuff), pulled me aside, lowered his voice, and said “you are messing with the wrong people when yuo walk around here”. I asked who. He said: “Look behind you”. I went to look behind me, but he stopped me with his arm. He then put one hand out in front of him, and his second hand behind the first one. He said: “You see this hand(the first one), this is you. You see this one(the second hand), this is you. I’ll be watching you”. This was said with menace; there was no hint of any joke. I asked him if he was threatening me, to which he remained moot.

Then, as they left, this same man said as he was leaving: “See you around, Bryan”. He knew my name because I stated it for the camera. I was a tad shaken, especially in the context of that volatile hour. I talked to a couple of people to see what I should do. I took it as a threat on my life. Clearly, he did it with the intent that I not return. What is not certain is if he meant to go through with anything if I were to return. Considering the whole group’s demonstrable craziness, I thought it prudent to call the police afterwards.

A Suffolk county police officer came so that I could file a report. This was NOT at the protest site. It was an hour and a half afterwards, in the parking lot of an apple bank by myself. The police officer stated that they could do nothing because the man’s words were too ambiguous. Basically, it would be “he said, she said”. It seemed to me, though he was right as respects the law, that he minimized it and analogized it to schoolyard juveniles. Yet, schoolyard kids don’t wear NRA hats, which was what this guy had on. I mentioned to he police officer the “Allah Slur”. Considering the recent justice department investigation into Suffolk County Police’s alleged lack of care for crimes against latinos on account of race, his answer to me saying, “Isn’t that hate speech?” was curious.

He said, “Everyone is always talking about Hate Crimes, but how come no one ever talks about love crimes.” I was thinking: “Yeah, Love crimes are commonly referred to as Domestic Abuse” He didn’t seem to have a high opinion on the substantive basis of hate crimes.

I have a decision to make: to return next Saturday, and verify if this guy’s threat is genuine, or not return due to a balancing act of “what good is my protest doing” compared to “how dangerous it is”. I’m not sure, but I am leaning towards not doing it, principally because I do not want to put others’ at risk. Any thoughts?