(Opinion) Remember when civic engagement and community involvement meant giving a pint of blood, picking up trash on the side of the road or participating in your local school bake sale?
That’s not good enough in 2018 America. Those gestures are passé. If you really care and if want the world to know how much you care, you seek out something that offends you, and you make a day’s activities out of it.
For the second year in a row, the Mobile City Council, a body you might expect to have a focus on police and fire protection, traffic, garbage pickup, etc., has taken up the intricacies of the First Amendment.
The issue: Discriminatory signs from the Comic Cowboys, a Mobile Mardi Gras krewe, expected to be on display in the February 13 Fat Tuesday parade.
According to a report from Mobile FOX affiliate WALA, members of “Indivisible,” a group of civic-minded Americans, suggested this week to councilmembers that the city “adopt a policy that would not allow groups that discriminate against others to get public money, in the way of police protection and barricades.”
The Comic Cowboys have been at the game of edgy commentary since 1884. Their brand is often witty, sometimes juvenile and it tests the boundaries of societal norms.
Last year, the alleged offensive signage involved the portrayal of an Uber ride in crime-riddled predominantly African-American Prichard as a trip in a police vehicle, and another proclaiming “BLACK LIVES MATTER Demands Justice, But It Seems It Will Settle for BIG SCREEN TVs.”
That prompted the mobilization of the army of the United States of the Offended and a showing at a Mobile City Council meeting. Attendees of the meeting were treated to a symposium on the First Amendment, which included statesman-like orations on the U.S. Constitution from City Councilmen Fred Richardson and John Williams – just what you want from your local governments, right?
Is anyone really offended by the goofy antics of a Mardi Gras mystic society? Consider that question with a healthy dose of skepticism.
It’s a free country, and I suppose you can take offense to anything you want. However, attempting to create a constitutional crisis in the chambers of Mobile’s Government Plaza warrants pushback. It is deserving of the question — are you genuinely offended, or are you pretending to be offended so that you can go before esteemed bodies like the Mobile City Council to show the world that you care and that you matter?
My guess is it is the latter.
Jeff Poor is a graduate of Auburn University and works as the editor of Breitbart TV. Follow Jeff on Twitter @jeff_poor.
