Freedom Failed: Birmingham's Edge 12 Movie Theater Closes Early on Christmas Because 400 Black People Riot

PK Note: I had planned to do two # posts in a row, until I read the story below that effectively ends the debate that Flash Mobs Mahogany Mobs will only transpire in states without the right to conceal carry.

Al.com put this picture of a white Flash Mob with its story on the 400+ Black people riot that closed Edge 12 Movie Theater in Birmingham on Christmas Night

Have we started a fire? No, but the fire rises anyways.

There is a reason that Dr. King’s children couldn’t go to Funland. It’s the exact same reason why malls such as Union Station (formerly Shannon Mall) just outside Atlanta are boarded up; it’s the same reason why the Mall of America in Minneapolis was locked-down; it’s the same reason why Birmingham’s Edge 12 movie theater was forced to close early on Christmas:

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- A crowd of young people -- possibly drawn though social media -- interrupted the movies at The Edge 12 Movie Theater and were disruptive outside in the parking lot of Festival Shopping Center on Crestwood Boulevard Sunday night.

About 400 people were involved, with 200 of them really disruptive, Birmingham Police East Precinct commander Capt. Allen Hatcher said Tuesday, based on reports he got from the off-duty Birmingham police officer who worked security at the theater that night.

Movie-goer Shannon Webster, pastor of First Presbyterian Church downtown, said he counted 18 police cars when he and his family were told to leave the theater, part-way through seeing "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows."

"I was surprised," he said. "I did not expect to see that on Christmas night, going out to the movies."

Hatcher said that a large group of youths had showed up in the theater and the parking lot Sunday and started to cause problems and disruptions. When theater management confronted them, they grew more disruptive and management shut all the movies down.
Hatcher said some youths out in the parking lot banged on windows of nearby businesses, pushed some shopping carts into the parking lot, and went inside a Chinese restaurant. The off-duty officer put out a call, and police responded with a large contingent.

No one, to his knowledge, Hatcher said, was hurt or arrested, but a window was damaged at the Radio Shack store. The off-duty officer said that youths had heard on Facebook there was going to be a fight.

Hatcher said he recalled Trussville having a similar social media mob at a movie theater more than a year ago.

Webster said he had arrived at the Edge 12 about 7 with his wife and two adult children. When he arrived, there were "a lot of really young kids were crowded inside, milling around."

During the movie, some came into the theater and started making noise, but one of the other movie-goers ordered them out in a commanding voice, Webster said.

"There were hundreds of kids in the lobby," he said.

Webster saw security guards handcuffing several. He thought the crowd of youths ranged in age from 13 to their early 20s.

The outside scene seemed tense, said Webster, who has done church work in places such as the Gaza Strip, Northern Ireland, Cuba, Guatemala, and Communist Eastern Europe.

"Usually there is nothing going on there on Sunday afternoon," Hatcher said of the shopping center. "I believe social media made it a big event."

Efforts to reach the management of Edge 12 for comment were unsuccessful.

Webster said Sunday night was the only time he had ever felt unsafe there, and he plans to return to the movies.

"I don't want it to keep me from going back to the theater, because I think it's important for the neighborhood and for East Birmingham," said Webster, who lives in Crestwood. "We need them there, so I will continue to go there.

Why can't the writer of this story just state that these were Black "youths?" Birmingham, located in Jefferson County, the home of one of the south’s first big Mahogany Mob attacks. This is freedom. This is why freedom failed. Don’t forget that Jefferson County (Birmingham is 72 percent Black) recently declared the largest municipal bankruptcy in American history.

Detroit’s (or Wayne County) will be even bigger.

Not once does the article have the temerity to call ‘youths’ by the proper term: Black people. The owner of Edge 12 stated in an interview earlier this year that the goal was to turn it into a family establishment:

Owner Marty Felts and general manager Rob DeLeo are seeking to bring new life into the old digs, and hope to reinvigorate the Festival Center in the process. Safety concerns from the past have been dealt with, and the theater features heightened security and an interior ticket office so that moviegoers can buy their tickets inside rather than standing outside at a box office.

“We want this to be a family-friendly place, with a committed staff and great employees,” said spokesperson Newton, assistant manager of the Edge, who added that there has been no trouble whatsoever in the area thus far.

Well, having “youths” force the premature closing of Edge 12 on Christmas night isn’t a great way to keep business going. Perhaps that’s what happened to Edge 14 in Macon, which Felts owned. It was closed in September. Odds are people avoided the theater because the well-known Black Undertow in Macon couldn’t be quiet during the movies. Don't try and be an entrepreneur to the Black Undertow unless you are in the chicken business (like the Tulsa Chicken Hut), or selling crack.

It is Black people – 400 +!!! – who forced the early closing of the Edge 12 movie theater, depriving that business of revenue through ticket and concession sales. Then again, crime in Birmingham is nearly monochromatic.

Worse, Al.com had the audacity to post a story today that discussed the Flash Mob Mahogany Mob phenomenon wrecking havoc across the nation, that was accompanied with pictures and video of white kids dancing for the Salvation Army kettle campaign at the Brookwood Mall in Birmingham.

These white kids were participating in a true Flash Mob, ostensibly trying to raise money through philanthropy that will probably go towards clothing and feeding the very Black kids who forced the closing of Edge 12 on Christmas.

Here’s what the second Al.com article stated:

Flash mobs are in the news again, with reports of a rowdy Mall of America "smash and grab" crowd on Monday and, closer to home, movie goers being sent home early from the Edge 12 Movie Theater in Birmingham on Christmas Day when security and management grew anxious over a group of rowdy young people believed to have been drawn by a Facebook mention of a possible fight.

Some cities have wrestled with trying to find a way to address the chaos such social media-driven events can cause. In Cleveland, the city council passed ordinances earlier this month aimed at curbing them.

The City Council there banned "inciting to riot" and added computers and cellphones to a list of items that can be considered criminal tools when used illegally. Violators may be sentenced to up to six months in jail and fined $1,000.

Critics had blasted a previous effort by the Cleveland panel to outlaw the use of Facebook and Twitter to rally mobs as unconstitutional, unnecessary and difficult to enforce. The ordinances passed this month became law without the signature of Mayor Frank Jackson, who said he didn't think they will make a difference.

[Other articles from Cleveland.com chronicling discussion of the issue there can be found here.]

For years, social media has been used to fuel gatherings that turn out to be beneficial or sinister, entertaining or even philanthropic, such as the November kickoff for the Salvation Army kettle drive in Birmingham, which was billed as a "flash mob" event but might not have met the letter of the definition of the term. 

All of the stories cited in this story involve (GULP!!!) Black people. It is the Black Undertow that is responsible for the mess in Birmingham, and it is the children of the Black Undertow that forced the early closing of Edge 12.

Birmingham was abandoned to the Black Undertow through massive white flight that created some of the top cities in America like Vestavia Hills, Mountain Brook, and Hoover, where white people rebuilt the town they had just fled.

Black people, who inherited the infrastructure that white people had created, built, and sustained in Birmingham, have turned it into a permanent filming location for the real-life crime/murder show The First 48.

Telling that Al.com published this story today:

Crumbling infrastructure in many of the nation's larger cities such as Birmingham are placing an unsustainable financial burden on populations unable pay for the rebuilding of key systems such as sewer and water, says a new research study from Michigan State University.

The infrastructure of the nation's central cities has reached and passed replacement age just as many core areas now contain populations of largely lower-income minorities already paying more for services than rural and small-city residents.

Along with metro Birmingham, other cities mentioned include Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

Is there even need to discuss the implications of what Climate Change means to this story? Pittsburgh is one of the nicest places live in America, but money that should be going to public works is diverted to paying for a the permanent underclass that is the Black Undertow.

Cleveland, St. Louis, Birmingham, and Detroit have one thing in common: Black people inherited an existing infrastructure when white people fled the Black Undertow, and they couldn’t sustain it.

In summation, those journalists in America whose job is to inform law-abiding citizens of potential risks to their person, business, and private property have failed us miserably. They aren’t ‘youths’; they are Black people.

The early closing of Edge 12 movie theater in Birmingham on Christmas 2011 was entirely due to Black people (400 + mind you) who engaged in similar actions to Black people around the nation rioting over Air Jordan’s.

Or, the exact same behavior that was on display at the Mall of America.

Yes, Dr. King, your children can go to Funtown now. But because they now can, malls are closing nationwide. So is Edge 12 in Birmingham.

Freedom has failed. It has bankrupted Birmingham; it has made seeing a movie with the family an unpleasant experience at Edge 12; it is simply the tyranny we call Black-Run America (BRA).

Let it be known that the theory stating that only so-called Blue States (those with laws against conceal carry) would be the host of Mahogany Mobs is now dead. Alabama, that reddest of red (well, white) states has now seen a 400 + Black person riot. Another business (like many of the dead malls/strip malls/restaurants/etc.) has its very existence threatened by Black people putting it in the red.

Have we started a fire? No, but the fire rises anyway.