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Dorchester minister wants armed guards in Boston schools
By adamg on Wed, 03/23/2022 - 3:17pm
As Baker listens, Rivers puts some body English into his call.
Most clergy members invited to open City Council meetings with an invocation calmly pray to God to give city officials the wisdom they need to lead this great city.
Not Eugene Rivers.
Invited by Councilor Frank Baker (Dorchester) to give the invocation before today's City Council meeting, Rivers first gave a fiery rant about how elected Black officials are failing their Black children by refusing to send armed guards into BPS schools - such as Madison Park and the Henderson - to protect the students the same way rich Whites and "bourgeois Black people" at Northeastern, Harvard, BU and Harvard are protected by armed guards.
And then Rivers, pastor of the Azusa Christian Community in Four Corners, gave a fiery prayer calling on God to make the "elected officials of color" he says refuse to walk through violent neighborhoods see the light and grant local schools the same protection rich white people take for granted at places like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Boston University, Northeastern and MIT.
In his opening statement, Rivers repeatedly accused elected Black officials, many of whom, he said, don't "live in the hood" like he does, of playing a game "at the expense of black youth" by refusing to agree with him to flood local schools with gun-packing guards, unlike at places like Harvard, which he sarcastically said has "lots of danger and violence."
He said some kids now bring their own guns to school for want of protection by good, virtuous Boston cops with guns, rather than social workers "who could do nothing more than hide when the guns were shown."
"Where is the justice in that?!?" he continued. "I thought Black lives matter! Well, if they do, there should be security to protect their lives," rather than children going to schools where "they live in fear because their political leadership has morally and politically failed them."
He blasted "fools" calling for defunding, rather than reforming, the police and and said there's no excuse for not protecting Blacks from Black violence, especially since Boston criminals are not "real thugs" like the ones in his native Philadelphia.
He concluded his prayer with a call for the audience to give him an "amen." He got a tepid one and urged councilors and others in the chamber to say "amen" louder. "Don't be scared," he said. "I'm Black."
His entire speech and invocation:
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Comments
Oh boy. A LOT of white people
Oh boy. A LOT of white people are about to comment on here about what’s best for the black and brown communities that they never set foot in.
My kids go to BPS
That’s the line of demarcation, but thanks for the virtue signal.
Cool
pull your kids from BPS and send them a school with armed guards.
He has a point
Somebody has to say it.
"The worst enemy that the Negro have is this white man that runs around here drooling at the mouth professing to love Negros and calling himself a liberal, and it is following these white liberals that has perpetuated problems that Negros have. If the Negro wasn't taken, tricked or deceived by the white liberal, then Negros would get together and solve our own problems. I only cite these things to show you that in America, the history of the white liberal has been nothing but a series of trickery designed to make Negros think that the white liberal was going to solve our problems. Our problems will never be solved by the white man."
-Malcom X
https://amp.thetimesnews.com/amp/984897007
WTF?
I mean...did you read the article? Rivers was calling out elected black officials. Also, who do you think is leading the effort to get police out of schools if not BLM?
...but you found a google link for a Malcolm X quote justifiably calling out white liberals so I guess you got that going for you.
Edited: I can't help but add, if you think MALCOLM X would be in favor of putting police in public schools...you don't know the first thing about Malcolm X.
Which point are you agreeing with?
Your quote doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything he said.
Thought he could "own the libs"
Ended up owning himself
so
this really is a troll account then
Remove the word white
Proceed
Remove the word black
Proceed
Uh huh
Uh huh. Troll account.
Nope
I care about violence in Boston. A lot.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln how did you like the play?
Here's how Malcolm X actually felt about police, btw:
The word that Malcolm X used wasn't even "black," guy who doesn't read before he rushes to post knee-jerk talking points. But as you say, "proceed"
Source: https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/a-summing-up-louis-lomax-in...
I was talking about the words of Eugene Rivers
Everything he said is true about politicians that are just paying lip service to districts they should be protecting. I’m aware Malcom X didn’t like the police. I was bringing up the fact that Eugene Rivers is right and these issues go beyond skin color. Politicians are not protecting the most vulnerable citizens when it comes to this matter. Safety should always be priority number one. If a neighborhood or school is not safe, it cannot thrive. Period. Are armed guards the answer? Metal detectors? I don’t know. Are these extreme measures? Yes. However, we are also talking about protecting children. Think of the amount of security you would have to go through to fly even a short distance. I think the issue warrants discussion because it is only a matter of time before every school experiences a school shooting if nothing gets done. If you care about kids, you care about gun violence, fentanyl, and depression.
https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/gun-violence/16-facts-about-gun-violenc...
2 armed police officers at Columbine
There were two armed cops at the 1999 Columbine shooting. The cop at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas school in Parkland, Florida has been widely criticized for hiding during the 2018 massacre.
Knowing that armed police are present in schools will not deter shooters, it will incentivize them to bring bigger, more powerful weapons that are designed to quickly and efficiently destroy human life.
https://apnews.com/article/shootings-parkland-florida-school-shooting-bb...
"Don't lock the deadbolt on
"Don't lock the deadbolt on your front door. It will incentivize burglars to bring bigger, more powerful crowbars."
uh
how effective are guns at stopping home invasions? great, now rework your analogy.
Unarmed school police
Did a pretty good job of protecting students before they were abolished.
Livin "in the hood"
So Rivers claims he "lives in the hood", unlike other Black officials ??
In fact he lives in Melville Park, in a very nice, large, single family house in a neighborhood with scores of Victorian mansions, and, gasp, lots of white people.
Both he and Baker are long time frauds.
It’s true people move when they can
It is true that most people who can leave an area they no longer want to live in due to things like safety, underperforming schools, or anything else will decide to move. There’s nothing wrong with looking out for the best interests of your family or yourself.
I agree that it makes a person more fraudulent when they do this and it is unfortunate that it happens so often. At the same time, I can’t blame someone for leaving violence and then speaking publicly to try and solve the problem. It is nice that he is calling out elected officials who are not doing enough to protect their constituents. I have emailed Ayanna Pressley regarding gun violence and get nothing in response but generic emails related to other topics. It’s pretty bad.
What would you expect Pressley to do about gun violence?
Genuinely curious how anyone who's paid attention to our current political system thinks a House Rep is supposed to "protect their constituents" with regards to gun violence. Can you propose an action she would take that would actually make it through the Senate given its current makeup?
Life in prison
for unlawful possession of a firearm.
ops cause more problems at
ops cause more problems at school than they fix.
Invocations are….
… a waste of taxpayer money.
Separation of church and state, please.
Can I get an amen?
AMEN!
.
Why should we care about the
Why should we care about the opinions of someone from an organization that doesn’t pay property tax to the city? This Jesus Junkie just wants to spend other people’s money on useless, overpaid cops.
"waste of taxpayer money"?
"waste of taxpayer money"?
How?
City doesn't pay for them, doesn't it? Honorarium? Validate parking?
We don’t pay councilors to sit through …
… procedural prayer sessions and rants when they need to be attending to city business.
City does pay:
For the roads that congregants drive on
For maintaining asphalt where congregants park
For police response if their church building is vandalized
It’s arguable that Rivers was not using his position to get involved in the sausage making of politics. It is arguable that his concern is genuine, and not related to the political aspect of BPD. It also is arguable that a politician might use the theoretical politics neutral position of religious cleric as a way to promote the political agenda of the politician.
That is happening at the state and federal levels. Politicians and politicized religious are using the tax exempt, theoretical politics neutrality of “religious rights” to push a very heavily politicized agenda that is all about politics and power.
What does Rivers’ congregants believe about armed guards in schools? Rivers’ is charismatic and loud. But I’m more interested in the opinions of the people who pay him for his charisma and volume.
Apparently...
being a member of the clergy gets you free rein to spout your political opinions to the City Council uninterrupted - good to know! I'll look for my invite to lead the invocation as a minister for the Sacred Church of the Start Charging Market Rates for Public Parking congregation.
Harvard, Yale, Princeton,
That's a weird list to use an example.
Yeah. Only 2 of them are
Yeah. Only 2 of them are actually in boston, 1 of them is in CT, and the Boston City council has authority over exactly zero of them. Oh and they all private not public.
More like 3 1/2
A lot of Harvard, even undergraduate stuff, is now in Boston. And while the MIT campus is across the river, MIT Police do come over to this side to patrol/deal with all the MIT frats in the Back Bay and along Bay State Road.
This concludes your UHub pedantry for the day.
No more “prayers” by anyone
No more “prayers” by anyone at city council meetings.
BU grad here
Love to see BU and NU in the same sentence with those others...
In your face, BC!
What's the smallest private university/college in the city with their own deputized police force?
Emerson?Wentworth?NEC or Fisher?
NEC's website refers to their special police officers, in addition to contract security guards: https://necmusic.edu/public-safety
Fisher clearly states they are deputized special POs, especially if you open the posted Clery Act report: https://www.fisher.edu/student-life/campus-police-and-public-safety
Just using the list by enrollment on Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universities_in_metro...) to determine "smallest" school.
The ghost of John Silber
gives you a grimace of approval.
A few things…
- prayers before a meeting? Am I still in North Carolina??
- I made it through Brockton High in the late ‘80s without armed guards. Pretty sure BPS can do the same.
- still stuck on the praying before a meeting. Is this a NASCAR race?
We prayed befor eMichalke Wus swearing in
In these crime/community meetings people always pray. ESP if there are multiple reverends.
Fwiw Eugene Rivers has two other alias and a very adult child he abandoned in Florida. And several associates and family members involved in crim in both Boston and Philadelphia: he was exiled by mention for a while and toured Europe.
He also is homophobic as hell. His MO is to stay in the press nd play Republican ideas to create conversation. Known him for years.
They've been having clergy open their meetings for years
Let me introduce you to my friends, the Satanic Temple, and their attempt to sue the invocations out of existence (OK, "friends" might be pushing it, given that they object to me using any devil/Hell puns when I write about them).
Prayer and NASCAR
Do they pray before NASCAR races? That's backwards. The drivers, at least, should be praying during them.
Yep!
Always a prayer before the race
What does he call himself?
What does he call himself? Bourgoise tax exempt clergy?
If he thinks armed guards are so great for safety
Does anyone know if he has them in his church? Because churches certainly haven’t been immune from mass shootings.
He didn't pray for impossible
He didn't pray for impossible.
Added video of his entire speech and invocation
At the bottom of the original post.
I thought we wanted cops out
I thought we wanted cops out of schools? When did the narrative change?
You do realize the Black community is not a monolith, right?
Just because this one guy is saying something doesn't mean everybody agrees with him.
The word monolith…
"Unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community with incredibly diverse attitudes about different things," Biden said.
https://youtu.be/5E9ZupZx-n8
“In no way did I mean to suggest the African American community is a monolith — not by identity, not on issues, not at all,“ Biden wrote.
From the mouth of the guy who says things like:
https://youtu.be/jhcgmwj3NAc
Writes the 1994 Crime Bill:
https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/oct/17/joe-biden-race-crime-bil...
And speaks to a victim of sexual harassment like this, only to later try and backtrack to cover his own ass
https://youtu.be/4oPnd911FcM
He’s phony through and through. He is a lifelong politician after all. It’s a job requirement.
...
Strong work there bringing Joe Biden into the discussion for, I assume, some excellent reason.
Joe Biden is relevant for two reasons
The writer (who’s dedication to Boston is greatly appreciated) chose to use the word monolith and it sounded regurgitated from the mouth of Biden.
And Joe Biden is exactly the type of politician Malcom X is referring to in the above quote.
lol
n/t
Rivers has (it seems) a
Rivers has (it seems) a sometimes blurry line between trying to raise people of color up and keeping them down (by keeping white people as the problem so that (a) there's somebody to be angry at, and (b) HE is the one doing the raising)
DIVINE WRATH
. Excellent article about the Reverend and how the police covered up his role in a vicious attack.
Divine Wrath
Divine Wrath.
Wow!
Wow!
His association with Bernard Law is especially creepy.
invocations
Put simply the invocations before City Council hearings are theater. I've watched them in the chamber and the feeling, at least to me, is one of going through the motions than anything having to do with God or anything like that. Also, they can have the effect of making a lot of people quite uncomfortable. The one before Mayor Wu was inaugurated was particularly discomfiting. If it had come from the lips of a Southern Baptist hellfire type the place would have gone berserk. Have a listen, starting at 4:36 or so;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8jL-LtH-f8
Interesting contradictions
He and his wife do not practice what they preach. They’ve preached that white folk who support back folks should make sure that they put their words to actions such as in where they choose to live.
Rivers astutely identifies racism as a sin and a force of evil. Yet he limits his vision to skin color. He seems to not recognize that racism is part of larger human sin: that of treating any human being, who doesn’t fit certain characteristics, as sun-human. Gay people being a prime example.
But that is a peculiarity of religious authority and power. Checks and balances are weak. Morality and ethics, self-reflection and humility, always weak forces in the human mind, grow weaker as the status, prestige and power of religious grows greater.
That is easily explained
by the fact that he is a grifter who has improved the lives of no-one while enriching himself.
We have a decent system of elected government in this city at the city, state and federal level. There is absolutely no reason to consult with a minister about anything other than the moral future of their own congregants. And yet...
Frank Baker
Desperately attempting to stay relevant now that Marty's gone. He's such a hep cat. Can you dig it?