Councilwoman: The Only Way to ‘Cancel’ J’Ouvert Is Martial Law
From The Gothamist:
Faced with calls to severely restrict or even outlaw the predawn J’Ouvert celebrations that take place across Central Brooklyn every year on Labor Day in the wake of two fatal shootings during this year’s festivities, Crown Heights Councilwoman Laurie Cumbo said that critics are proposing the impossible.
For perspective, she explained, when she was growing up in East Flatbush, she went to J’Ouvert parties for the better part of two decades without even knowing there was an official parade.
Writes Cumbo:
Talking about simply canceling the event is maybe good political speak, but the reality of the situation is that J’Ouvert is a celebration that happens over the Labor Day weekend, and so when people talk about canceling it, there is far more that happens during J’Ouvert than simply the parade. People have backyard parties. They have barbecues. They have celebrations in their homes. There are celebrations that happen far beyond the parade route. There are nightclubs, bars, lounges, that also have parades and festivals. It’s a time for people to be out and about all throughout Central Brooklyn. It’s a very outdoor event.
So when you say cancel it—how do you cancel block parties, barbecues, events, people wanting to be outside, people having outdoor parties, people practicing, trucks being outside, parties happening. How do you cancel that?
The only way that I can imagine that you cancel it, if that’s what we’re seriously talking about, would be to impose a curfew, and maybe bringing in the National Guard, or martial law, and make it so people can’t go outside of their homes the night before Labor Day. That’s really what canceling it looks like.
And it sounds good to say cancel it, but J’Ouvert is a celebration that comes from many of the Caribbean islands. It’s a celebration that has been going on here for more than two decades. There’s so many things that happen that I think instead of focusing on J’Ouvert and Labor Day and those sorts of things—you can’t focus on making one weekend out of the whole year the safest, because the ills that create gun violence all throughout the year are still in existence.
To think that those issues are going to go away during Labor Day, or they’re going to go away during the summer month—we can’t cancel summer; we can’t cancel the weekend; we can’t cancel J’Ouvert. We can’t keep canceling. We’ve got to work at what is the root of the problem.
Where is our CHCC??
Move it to the City!!
Take it to Manhattan, PLEASE!!!
Miriam
How about not giving out permits anymore !!!
old timer
this was the first time in its 30 year history that the organizers actually applied for a permit….
thats silly
Apparently Black Lives dont matter
CONCERNED CITIZEN.
B.H. These people have no respect for another human life.
This event could be held at The Barclay Center, Madison Square Garden’s, or some stadium, arena.
Laurie Cumbo, how about that?.
USC
any US citizen should live in dignity, ESPECIALLY the working class, on LABOR DAY. How does this parade make sense?? Can’t they make it in Prospect park??? or ELSEWHERE ?
#3 IS SO RIGHT: I GUESS BLACK LIVES DON’T MATTER. More important for them to have fun with their costumes and alchohol etc.
Really, these people need to be helped. Stop the parade, and save lives.
Annoying Lot
Why don’t most of you guys look up who funds the group Black Lives Matter. It’s no one black. What do they have to gain.
bgg3
the root of the problem, she says, in her words of the above article. This does not make sense.
If a child is doing a negative behavior, do you try to get to the root of it in a way where the child may hurt him/herself while the one in charge is fruitlessly figuring out what to do? If it was Lori Cumbo’s child, would she be ok with that??
this makes no sense.
Pedant
She’s right. It’s too entrenched to just get canceled.
It’s about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen but the danger aspect is overblown. It’s bad guys killing bad guys and those black lives don’t matter even to black people and the numbers are low in proportion to the numbers of participants. They aren’t the most civilized non-Jewish population, granted, that distinction probably belongs to pre-war Germans.
You can’t move it to the City because the west Indian community is here, she is correct that parade is an integral part of something much, much larger phenomenon.
It’s a big deal in their culture for better or for worse, and when the Government loses its squeamishness about being heavy handed with respect to long standing cultural practices, believe me, its we who stand to lose the most.
What we can demand is an ample police presence and and efficient management.
Nonsense
“You can’t move it to the City because the west Indian community is here”
Nonsense. You can easily get there by train. Parades belong in Manhattan.
Pedant
you can also hail a cab, or ride a bus or carpool or you can walk. In the real world not feasible and impossible are distinctions without a difference. that parade isn’t getting canceled without riots. major riots that reoccur yearly, with photo-ops for the world’s race-mongers.
But heh, I’d prefer to be wrong on this one.
very simple-cancel the jouvert parade
please don’t play dumb,
you know the onw that causes people to congregate along it’s route
the one that starts in middle of the night and goes to till the morning
we’re not talking about bbqs, and home parties…
almost all the labor day shootings happen outdoors, along the parade route of either jouvert or the west indian day parade
puhleeze
Shimon Shak
Let’s get real here. Do you really expect a politician to cancel an event that hosts up to a million people yearly? People that vote?!?! This can and will not get off the ground nor be supported by anyone who is threatened with reelection. The best possible solution one can do is maybe move it to like Floyd Bennett field so there are no residents to bother or complain .
DeClasse' Intellectual
the representative does not understand that there are two main issues that have not been addressed or corrected over the years:
1)Accountability and responsibility–just recently they were required to obtain permits. With no oversight, the issues kept on magnifying. Shootings and killings are nothing new to this event, only when Caomo’s aide was killed did the howls arise.
2)The area –as has been proven time again– able to handle the physical demands of such an event, crowd wise, noise wise and cleanniness wise. I have seen as well instances at Utica and Eastern Parkway where handicapped people were told they had to go to the other end and were not allowed to use the elavator for disabaled people.
Proven
Here is proof that this is mot working ans sustainable lorrie cumbo lives in a fantasy world and offers no solution evidently no lives matter except her olitical one
& the chjcc said to vote for her, "Oy vey"
This lady is an embarrassment,
Let the police ‘do their job’ enough said.