Baton Rouge parade floats mocked black men killed by cops just months before Alton Sterling shooting

[Renaissance Man]

Yes, it seems that Louisiana’s capital city has a race problem.

A video of Baton Rouge police officers fatally shooting 37-year-old black man Alton Sterling sparked nationwide outrage on Wednesday. This shooting did not happen in a vacuum, as Baton Rouge has a very troubling recent history of racial animosity.

If you want an example, look no further than the Spanish Town Parade that occurred earlier this year and that featured floats that mocked black people who were killed at the hands of police and that portrayed President Obama as a pimp. Parade goers also waved Confederate flags around, as these pictures demonstrate:

The most offensive image here is the one of the pink flamingo — which is the parade’s official symbol — getting punched by a fist with a sign that reads, “I can’t breathe!” hung around its neck. This is a clear reference to Eric Garner, a New York man who died after being placed in a banned chokehold by police. [/snip]

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/baton-rouge-parade-floats-mocked-black-men-killed-by-cops-just-months-before-alton-sterling-shooting/

[oberliner]

1. 'Not about to start censoring' floats, Spanish Town parade board member says in response to outcry

Baton Rouge’s signature Spanish Town Mardi Gras Parade provoked controversy for the second year in a row, with critics saying its risqué style of humor went too far this past weekend.

This year’s most offending culprits were jokes about race, as at least two floats parodied the “Black Lives Matter” movement with “Pink Lives Matter” slogans, which reference the parade’s pink flamingo mascot.

One float featured a drawing of a flamingo being beaten with a police baton. The flamingo had an “I can’t breathe” sign strung around its neck, mimicking the words of Eric Garner, whose 2014 New York City death at the hands of police officers sparked protests about police brutality and helped kick off the nationwide “Black Lives Matter” demonstrations.

“It’s very easy for people who may not be enduring the weight of these types of incidents to make light of it,” said Donney Rose, one of many black writers who said this year’s parade crossed too many boundaries. “But when you belong to a group or demographic to where that could be your reality at any point in time, you don’t find the humor in it, you don’t find the satire.”

http://www.theadvocate.com/baton_rouge/news/article_46a70817-6610-519d-abcc-8e16f2d81e31.html