Release Of The Day

Black Conservatives Demand Pelosi, NAACP and Other Liberals Renounce and Apologize for Occupy Wall Street Outrageousness

Washington, D.C. – With Occupy Wall Street protesters planning a mass demonstration in New York City and issuing calls for disruptions in other cities on November 17, members of the Project 21 black leadership network demand that high-profile supporters of the Occupy effort reject the violence, rudeness and hate that has come to embody the leftist protests and — in the alleged absence of a leadership structure among Occupy protesters — to apologize for the mobs’ uncivil actions.

“The behavior of the Occupy Wall Street protesters is boorish and violent, and it has no place in civil society,” said Project 21 Fellow Deneen Borelli. “It’s shocking that the very same people who tried and failed to tie the Tea Party movement to racism and radicalism are now embracing the Occupy mob despite the reports of widespread violence, anti-Semitism and general lawlessness. If these people hope to retain any shred of credibility, they must take responsibility for their poor judgment and condemn the Occupy protests.”

On November 17, Occupy Wall Street protesters plan to “shut down Wall Street,” “occupy the subways” and “take [Foley] Square” (next to City Hall). These actions come in the wake of the eviction of Occupy protesters from Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan so that the park could be cleaned. A court ruling also now bars protesters from resuming camping in that park. Shortly after the eviction, a protester caught on video said they would “burn New York City to the ground” and “in a few days, you’re going to see what a Molotov cocktail [fire bomb] can do to Macy’s [department store].”

Since the Occupy protests began, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), a fierce critic of the Tea Party movement, said about Occupy protesters: “God bless them for their spontaneity.” The NAACP, which also passed a resolution in 2010 asking Tea Party leaders to repudiate alleged racism and which engaged in several efforts to link the Tea Party to racism, passed a resolution on October 15 “to support the Occupy Wall Street movement consistent with the policies adopted by the NAACP.” Minor celebrity Janeane Garafalo, who previously called Tea Party members “racists” and “rednecks,” recently called Occupy protesters “a real grassroots movement with a message.”

There are just three representatives among the many lawmakers, columnists, celebrities and others who appear to have embraced Occupy protests. This praise comes despite the fact that Occupy campsites in cities nationwide have become health and crime hazards and hundreds of protesters have been arrested for infractions that include assaulting police officers, obstructing traffic and disobeying city ordinances involving things such as curfews and camping in public spaces. Drug busts, sexual assaults and prostitution have additionally been reported. Occupy protesters have also been reported making anti-Semitic statements and holding anti-Jewish signs, and their political agenda has drawn praise from former Ku Klux Klan grand wizard David Duke, the American Nazi Party and the Communist Party USA.

Project 21 spokesman Bob Parks, who visited and documented the behavior of Occupy Wall Street, Occupy D.C. and protests in other cities for mrctv.org, said: “Mic check! While demonizing the liberation of the Iraqi people as an ‘occupation,’ the Van Jones fringe used that same name to squat on public property, squat on police cars, squat in the street and — after two months of imposing themselves on their fellow citizens with arrhythmic can-banging, garbage, rudeness, no-imagination chants, thefts, STDs, mooching and rioting (and don’t forget those rapes), they’re been kicked off those properties and don’t have squat to show for it.”

Project 21 spokesman Emery McClendon was a witness to Occupy mayhem when protesters showed up outside the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. on November 4. Three Occupy protesters were arrested and at least two elderly attendees of the Americans for Prosperity event held in the building were injured during the Occupy D.C. assault. McClendon said: “I was recently at a Tea Party-related event in Washington, D.C. where we were attacked by Occupy D.C. protesters. Several of our people were injured. The Occupy protesters encircled the building we were in and used children as human shields. They threatened us, and made it known that they intended to cause us harm.”

“People involved in the Tea Party movement are passionate about restoring America to a position of greatness and back to its founding principles. We have obeyed the rules and have assembled peacefully and respectfully at our events,” added McClendon. “The Occupy groups, on the other hand, have broken laws and refused to abide by permits and city ordinances.”

“Everything that the left tried to pin on the Tea Party movement — hatred, radicalism and violence — are all there among the Occupy protesters,” said Borelli. “It’s hypocritical for the very same people who heaped hyperbole on the Tea Party not to practice what they preached and disassociate themselves from the Occupy mob and apologize for their own bad judgment.”

Project 21, a leading voice of black conservatives for nearly two decades, is sponsored by the National Center for Public Policy Research (http://www.nationalcenter.org).

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