Black Lives Matter Gets Pushback in Ridley

People have a hard time understanding a point I often make: Because we’re mostly all Black here in Chester, many Chester folks don’t relate to race issues like people from other communities. Yet Chester folks know, when they cross the city line into mixed or all-white communities, the rules — and their comfort level — change. 

The price Black folks pay for living in an all-Black community is underfunded education, poor housing stock, a lot of Dollar Stores, pollution, and receivership. Yet folks would rather put up with all that than to live beside neighbors who don’t want them there. 

That type of neighbor gathered up their motorcycles, pickup trucks, confederate flags, and surely their guns, to harass a Black Lives Matter march going through Ridley Township earlier this month. 

The Delaware County Daily Times reported that locals gathered at the Herbert W. Best Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 928 on Sutton Avenue. Most of the people there were middle-aged white people with American flags, while the BLM marchers were of varied races and ethnicities, their ages ranging from infants to elderly in wheelchairs. The two groups started exchanging unpleasantries as the march passed the VFW.

The Daily Times quotes someone at the VFW as saying, “We’re here to support all veterans and first responders...The VFW is private property, and we’re here to protect it in case of any kind of vandalism...We’re here for the community, 100 percent here for the community and all our first responders – our police, our firefighters, EMTs, everybody and the U.S. military.”

Those marchers passed dozens of businesses on their route. I may be going out on a limb here, but in my opinion, the last place they’d consider vandalizing is a VFW. There are a lot of Black veterans of foreign wars. Maybe they didn’t fight alongside the Ridley Township veterans.

Things got tenser. The Daily Times states that “mostly white men bum-rushed Black Lives Matter protesters as they neared the township police station before police separated the two sides.”

I wonder what “mostly white men” means? Were there Black men bum-rushing Black Lives Matter protesters, too? Maybe there were white women. Who knows? 

As State Senator Tim Kearney tried to say a few words, motorcyclists drove by several times and revved their engines. I guess that’s the equivalent of a loud, disrespectful fart. 

Somebody from the flag-waving crew hollered out “Go home!” 

“This is our home,” someone retorted. 

Then two dark pickup trucks revved up and spewed clouds of black exhaust smoke over the walkers. I guess that’s another fart. 

The VFW guy said he was there to protect his community. As of Census 2010, the racial makeup of the township was 90.0% white, 5.7% African American, 0.1% Native American, 2.2% Asian, 0.5% from other races, and 1.4% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.9% of the population. In his mind, the VFW guy’s gotta safeguard those numbers. He knows that too many Black folks in Ridley Township could affect how much large corporations and their bankers decide to invest in their town. 

Ridley Township is home to a slew of national chains and a large mix of mom and pop businesses. But Chester City can’t get a single Wawa, even though everyone from Chester shops there. 

I really like the part in the Daily Times article that says the VFW was rocking Neil Diamond’s “America” on the sound system. But I’m guessing if the marchers had blasted Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” Katy, bar the door. 

On August 7, the Delaware County Black Caucus, led by State Senator Anthony Williams, held a press conference in front of the Ridley Township building to address what happened at the protest. Actually it was a lot more rally than press conference. About a dozen speakers took the mic and brought passion, quotes, demands, accusations, disgust, hope, and calls for actions to about 75 masked and social-distanced supporters and observers. There were calls for resignations, investigations, and corrections to the record. 

Interestingly, there was no local police presence at the press conference, which was held beside the police station. None of the locals who had defended the Ridley VFW made themselves known, if they were in the crowd. 

It would be nice to hear a statement from Ridley Township’s political leaders. Will they take umbrage at what went down? Or will they say there were fine people on both sides?

Stefan Roots blogs at Chester Matters and at Covid While Black.