Bartholomew's Notes

A story from Grand Rapids, via J. Bennett Rylah (H/T Ed Brayton):

At the moment when I walked into Gay Day this past Saturday, it was surreal, like some kind of charming French romance… But, OH, we couldn’t have that for long. A group of protestors showed up to harass from the other side of a chain link fence. They came armed with Bibles. And it wasn’t the usual, “repent or go to Hell.” Rather, it was the decree that all races would war against each other and the losers would have their women ravished. Which, according to one of the vitrolic protestors meant, “you ass is gonna get raped.”

The above video shows the “preachers” making a specific threat to rape, and crudely warning a woman to keep her “pussy clean” for “when it happens”.

All Michigan has further details:

The non-profit Tolerance, Equality and Awareness Movement, or TEAM, has posted a letter to its Web site urging police to prosecute unidentified protesters who allegedly made rape and death threats at the event organized by the East Hills Council of Neighbors to celebrate the community’s diversity.

…TEAM posted to its Web site a YouTube video of what appears to be a protester using an ancient Bible prophecy about Babylon to justify raping a Gay Day participant. (Caution: the video clip contains foul language).

It shouldn’t be too difficult for the police to identify the protestors, since their robes and posters as shown in a photo on the All Michigan website reveal them to be members of a Hebrew Israelite group: most distinctively, one of the group’s signs shows a traditional white American devotional portrait of Jesus, to which has been added horns and the commentary (in English and Spanish): “THIS IS THE DEVIL / THIS IMAGE IS NOT BIBLICAL / JESUS IS A NEGRO NOT A WHITEMAN”.

The same poster was seen by blogger Zomblog in Berkeley in 2009, and there are other examples on-line, including this one from Dallas. The bottom corner of the poster incorporates a second portrait, traditionally thought to be of Cesare Borgia; Hebrew Israelites believe that mainstream images of Jesus are based on his face.

A photographer uploaded a photo of the preachers in Grand Rapids last October; one of the men in the photo holds a painting of some UFOs, declared to be “THE CHARIOTS OF GOD”. Videos of preaching in Grand Rapids have also been uploaded to Daily Motion by a member of the group using the name “riseofisrael”.

The SPLC has some general background to the movement:

Around the country, thousands of men and women have joined black supremacist groups on the extremist fringe of the Hebrew Israelite movement, a black nationalist theology that dates back to the 19th century.

Since 2000, when the prophecy of a key leader failed to materialize (he predicted Christ would return to Earth at the dawn of the new millennium to wreak bloody vengeance on white people), the rhetoric of extremist Hebrew Israelites sects has been steadily heating up, with increasing talk of an impending apocalypse and God-ordained race war. At the same time, a magnetic young leader, who counts among his disciples the lead singer of a top-selling R&B group, emerged and rapidly expanded a movement that was previously concentrated in black inner-city neighborhoods on the East Coast. There are now extremist Hebrew Israelite churches in cities throughout Florida, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Oklahoma and Oregon.

Confrontations between Hebrew Israelite street preachers and their perceived enemies are growing uglier and gaining increasing attention through video clips circulated to legions of viewers on websites like YouTube…

In June, the leader of a Black Hebrew sect pleaded guilty to killing a four-year old boy in 2010 “because he thought the child was gay”.

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