As a member of Omega Psi Phi, I feel like I can make this joke:
Members of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity held a rally at the Philadelphia Starbucks where an employee called the police on fellow Omega member Rashon Nelson for simply existing. The group organized the gathering to fight racial injustice, and if anyone knows about getting kicked off the yard, it’s the Ques.
The Philly Tribune reports that Omega Psi Phi Grand Basileus Antonio Knox, attorney Benjamin Crump and nearly 100 members of the 106-year-old fraternity gathered in front of the Starbucks whose in-store music system curiously never plays “Atomic Dog.”
“We’ve held the office of president of the United States, we’ve held the office of attorney general. We’re CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. We’re brain surgeons. We’re bankers. We’re educators. We’re athletes and entertainers. And you can cheer us on one day and the next day arrest us and prejudge us because of the color of our skin,” Knox said. “We’re asking that Starbucks join us, allow us to work together to create change all over because it’s not just one company.”
Crump, who also spoke at the event, said, “We gather not just for Donte [Robinson] and Rashon, but we gather for Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla., because it was implicit bias that led to his death.” Crump added:
We gather for Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. — that was implicit bias that led to his death. We gather for Philando Castile in Minneapolis, Minn., because that was implicit bias that led to his death. We gather for Sandra Bland in Houston, Texas, because that was implicit bias that led to her death. We gather for Laquan McDonald in Chicago, Ill. — that was implicit bias that led to his death. We gather for Natasha McKinney in Virginia — that was implicit bias that led to her death. We gather for Stephon Clark in Sacramento, Calif. — that was implicit bias that led to his death. We gather for Corey Jones in West Palm Beach, Fla. — that was implicit bias that led to his death. We gather for Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La. — that was implicit bias that led to his death. And we can go on and on across every district in Omega Psi Phi and more ...
When you think about all the young Black men around the country — Stephon Clark, Terence Crutcher, Philando Castile — all these unarmed Black men, it’s shoot first, ask questions later. But you can have a young white boy go into a school in Florida shoot 34 people, kill 17 of them. They followed him for hours and they take him alive.
While none of the Omegas in attendance offered to take Starbucks employees “to the green,” several members of the organization met with Starbucks executives before the meeting to discuss the events and, presumably, to make sure one of Starbucks’ baristas didn’t call the police to warn about the group of black men gathered in a section of town that the ACLU describes as only 3 percent black.
The Tribune also mentioned that the crowd of members were all dressed in suits, which made me laugh. It’s as if the newspaper expected them to show up in hoodies and gold boots, which is preposterous.
Everyone knows that the Ques don’t wear shirts.