The American Divide, Patriots Park, June 26

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BLM protesters send message to police supporters

June 30, 2020

By Annabelle Allen–

Tarrytown’s Patriots Park became just one of many hotbeds of American disunion Friday evening. A police barricade split the park down the middle for a Back the Blue Rally on the north end of the park, counter-protested by a Black Lives Matter rally to the south. The BTB event was organized by John Stiloski, owner of the local Tarrytown towing company. Demonstrators gathered to show support for their local police department, many of them wearing shirts that read “Back the blue, they are here for you,” “Businesses for Police…We thank our heroes,” and “Our police force is great. Stop the politics. No defunding.”

Black Lives Matter protests have erupted across the nation since the May 25th death of George Floyd at the hands of police in Minneapolis. The focus of many BLM protests is on police brutality and systemic racism in the U.S criminal justice system. In Tarrytown alone, there have been four BLM protests, as well as conversations regarding the Police Department’s budget–currently $5 million annually for a police force of 35—numbers far in excess of what is needed for a population of 11,399, in the view of many protesters.

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The BLM turnout outnumbered police supporters in the park Friday evening by about three to one, but those who came out to support the police saw officers as their neighbors, their friends, perhaps someone they went to school with. Many said they feel their communities are safe and that the police have protected them. Anti-police protesting, they said, has no place in a small, “safe” community.

Stiloski boasted of having friends and family who work in law enforcement. He said the purpose of their rally was clear: to show local law enforcement that the community appreciates them. He claimed he could not comprehend why BLM protest their local police. “What are they protesting? We don’t have bad police here. There’s a counter protest to protest good cops that are trying to come out and do the right thing every day for their community,” stated Stiloski.

Sandra Aderemi, 16, a resident of Sleepy Hollow, organized the BLM counter protest, which drew an estimated 300 demonstrators, many of them of high school and college age. Their mission was to continue to elevate Black voices and oppose what they saw as the Back the Blue movement’s attempted subversion of BLM.

Aderemi claimed that the pro-police demonstrators wrongly see the BLM movement as anti-police, when really it is only anti-racist. “It all just comes back to a refusal to be educated.” refusal to accept that maybe these beliefs you’ve held onto for so long might simply be wrong and prejudiced. You asked me why I thought ‘Back the Blue’ was protesting, and I will put it in the simplest words: unwillingness to listen.”

As chants from the BLM rally grew louder, the BTB gathering turned up the volume on a sound system mounted on one of the Stiloski tow trucks, blasting the National Anthem, “God Bless America” and ABBA’s “Dancing Queen during BLM speeches. It was soon clear that the common goal of these two events was not to listen but to drown the other out.

2020 June BLM BTB Rallies Patriots Park

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Henderson Clarke, whose brother, Kamal Flowers, was fatally shot by a New Rochelle police officer two weeks ago, emerged as a featured orator of the event, first addressing the BLM gathering but then moving toward the metal barriers police had erected to separate the groups. Standing on a bench, he directly addressed BTB supporters pressed up against the barrier. “I see a whole bunch of officers and what they’re trying to do is quiet this rally by having their speakers blown loud,” shouted Clarke. “To the officers who are having their rally, what are we gonna do to solve the separatism problem? I see the association behind there, holding your signs. I have nothing wrong to say about you. You are not the enemy, but what you’re doing is causing you to become the enemy.”

Behind him, young BLM protesters, many with provocative signs, chanted familiar phrases. Most of the crowd stuck to their respective sides of the barricade, listening to their own speeches, seemingly locked in their own opinions. Issues surrounding defunding the police, and whether Black Lives Matter or All Lives Matter continued to be a game of broken telephone.

For most progressives, defunding the police does not mean abolishing departments but reallocating funds away from paramilitary equipment and applying them to underfunded programs in education, public health, housing and youth services. When others hear demands to defund, they hear crime and anarchy. “Defunding the police means there is no more police department. That’s what it means. Plain and simple,” said Frank Morganthaler, a retired New York City fireman and ex-Marine who stood with BTB. “We need them. If we don’t have them, we have chaos.”

Toward the end of the protest, which lasted nearly three hours, Aderemi and other BLM demonstrators approached the barricade, hoping to bridge the gap around some of these polarizing issues. “I was called a lot of things, but that didn’t stop me from trying to educate them,” she said. Aderemi pointed to each demonstrator lining the fence and told them that while their lives mattered, it is important to fight specifically for black lives. One BTB protester seemed incapable of saying “Black Lives Matter” without reflexively adding, “Yes, but all lives do!”

“Their message was clear: that ‘All Lives Matter,’” responded Aderemi. “But they failed to understand that this very statement is why we are protesting. We want this very statement to be TRUE. However, it’s not. Four hundred years of suffering.”

“I just hope that we touched some hearts on the ‘Back the Blue’ side yesterday,” said Aderemi. “I hope they can see the power in kids organizing a rally to fight for their lives. I hope they can listen.”

With persistence and dedication, Aderemi got through to one man anyway. Carrying an ‘All Lives Matter’ sign, he walked away from the fence, paused to turn his sign around and write on the back: ‘Black Lives Matter.’ His new sign in hand, he returned to the barrier.

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