IS IT TIME TO END THE PUERTO RICAN FEST?
Rochester can no longer endure the embarrassment, expense, disorder and danger associated with the Puerto Rican Festival.
Twenty years is long enough.
If the North Clinton Avenue community can't celebrate its culture without shaming itself each year by its uncivilized and criminal behavior, then the festival has to go.
That's harsh and unfair, but so is the burden and disgrace forced on the city of Rochester each year by hundreds of free-roaming monsters who wave the flag of a noble island and act like savages.
I'm sorry if those words hurt feelings, but I imagine that's nothing compared to the feelings of the family of the woman who was gunned down last night in the second night of riot and criminal gunfire.
When people start dying, it's time to make a change.
City Hall and the police department have tried, year after year, with encouragement, pleas and every imaginable policing tactic to calm and disperse the crowds, and year after year it has only gotten worse. Just yesterday, the president of City Council stood at Clinton and Upper Falls to plead for restraint and civility.
And just hours and blocks away a woman bled out and died.
You can't blame that on the mayor, you can't blame it on the police, you can't blame it on oppression or racism or poverty or tradition. You can only blame it on the failed and destructive culture that produced the hundreds of people who violate law, morality and decency, terrorizing a neighborhood, refusing to disperse, throwing rocks and bottles at police, and inevitably pulling out and firing almost blindly the illegal guns that denote both their personal failure and their utter disregard for the lives and safety of innocent people.
Two nights in a row, gunfire rang out, and the randomness of trajectory and who is standing where are the only things that kept one dead person from being 20 dead people and Rochester being the lead story on the national news.
So the festival has to go.
Or the community has to realize how horrifically shameful its conduct is. The only thing that will make a difference is the National Guard or actual community pride -- a pride that recognizes that when you act like trash people are going to think you are trash.
A pride that knows living a life is more important than waving a flag in demonstrating who you and your people are. A pride that guides people in their conduct and in the raising of their children, that expects people to act with honor and dignity, by obeying the law and living a life that will draw praise, not derision.
Because right now it's derision.
Across the Rochester region, the Puerto Rican Festival has become not a reminder of the presence and contributions of a truly great people, but of the annual debauchery and disorder that hang around the necks of the Puerto Rican people as a public shame for the rest of the year.
Is that fair? No. But it's real.
And the reality is that the nights of the Puerto Rican Festival have become the most disruptive, expensive and embarrassing events in Rochester's year.
And we can't take 20 more years of that.
And we can't continue to pretend, for the sake of community ego and profit, that the festival is unconnected to the events that rip through the city's Puerto Rican neighborhood in the hours after.
A woman was murdered last night. That's not the heritage we want to celebrate. That's not the culture we can continue to accept.
Puerto Ricans are among the best people in Rochester. The very best. But enough is enough. The cultural and social decay that produce hordes of lawbreakers can't be ignored or tolerated.
No matter what flag they're waving.
@GovKathyHochul LOL. Shooters are apprehended by the NYPD and then released pre trial under your deviant criminal justice system. In fact, 46.7% of all violent felony defendants in NYC are released pre-trial.
Btw, how does BAIL REFORM jive with your “desire” to keep New Yorkers safe? Also why did your terrorist comrades of the @DSA not ALLOW @NassauExec to speak? What about his CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO FREE SPEECH?
New York is a State in the UNITED STATES 🇺🇸, not a separate 3rd 🌎 shit hole country.
@TMZ Why don't you read the reports and Fauci's Diary before you opening you mouth to spew propaganda BullShit about Dr. Death. Reports are supposed to investigate before they open their mouths not spew leftist loon horse shit. Wake up dumbass ... You cannot be trusted
@ABC All of you are so STUPID! What the hell does him winning the lottery? People from EVERY socioeconomic demographic has been arrested for domestic violence. $$ Have nothing to do with it ... Think about it and quit being so dumb!
100%. We as Americans who LOVE our country and believe in what it stands for need to draw a line in the sand and take a stand. We must stop this Muslim cancer from metastasizing across our nation. Ban the call to prayer, Ban Sharia Law, ban the burqua and hijab for National Security reasons. If we can get Islam recognized as an Ideology only then it won’t fall under the religious protection umbreall of the 1st Amendment. Some of us signed the dotted line to fight ALL ENEMIES both foreign and domestic.
@sfj8888 Does anyone know what their beef is? Not that it makes a difference but I just wonder why these people think this is an appropriate response to what ...???
I wish we had an education system today that taught the history of socialism and communism and how they ruin societies.
They taught it when I was in school!
We learned about the bread lines and how citizens have zero rights when the gov't controls everything. 😉
Capitialism works!
It encourages people to be self-sufficient and rely less on gov't and more on ourselves.
It encourages competition between companies to create products that people want.
Companies compete to find the best employees by offering incentives to recruit them and keep them.
When the gov't controls everything, it takes away our choices to live the happy, independent lives we deserve.
Since ABC and NBC did NOT air the president's address last night, That tells me they were probably complicit in the election fraud. We ALL should turn our backs on them and let them crumble! **Read JFK Secret Society speech from 1961. He spoke about the same as Trump tonight.
@ABC ABC and NBC should lose their broadcasting license! We need to go after companies who pay advertising dollars to these networks that do NOT report truth!!!! I'll be taking notes on those companies!!!!
@rachbarnhart I laugh when I think Biden in office and the Democrats had a great opportunity to control spending, bring down inflation and what did they do ... ??? ... ??? ... open the borders & pay out billions for illegals ... Now no matter what occurs .... But, But, But Trump