HATING THE HATE
Mayor solicits donations as council debates hate speech at meeting over comments from McBride supporter
Show me the
TRENTON money.
Mayor Reed Gusciora attempted to cash in politically on recent hate-filled rhetoric spewed by Divine Allah, a member of the New Black Panther Party, targeting gays, Jews and whites.
The city’s first openly gay mayor sent out an online mailer Tuesday night unabashedly soliciting constituent donations for his re-election campaign in 2022 after Allah called him a “white boy” and “little fa**ot” at a rally last week for council president Kathy McBride.
In the mailer, the mayor linked to video of Allah’s “viewer discretion advised” rant and suggested he was one of McBride’s “strongest supporters.” Allah knew McBride’s slain son, Kenneth.
“I take no pleasure in sharing the caustic rhetoric delivered on the steps of our own City Hall, but I feel compelled to show you the evidence of the obstacles we must still overcome,” Gusciora wrote. “People motivated by hate make bad public servants. Please support my campaign with a contribution today.
“We’ve seen too many examples of the tragic effects of hate speech in our society. We have seen unprecedented levels of fear, hate, apathy and despair over this past year. Trenton does not need any more bad actors, tearing the city down, stifling its growth, and peddling hateful and divisive messages along the way.”
Gusciora didn’t return a phone call seeking comment about his opportunistic money grab. >>
McBride distanced herself from Allah in an interview with The Trentonian after last week’s rally, held to denounce at-large councilman Jerell Blakeley for calling McBride an “illiterate crackhead prostitute” during a coronavirus briefing last year.
Blakeley’s “misogynistic” slur came to light for the first time last week after the city was forced to turn over transcripts of the secret coronavirus meetings it held last year as part of a lawsuit brought by The Trentonian.
The council will vote Thursday whether to approve a $17,500 settlement for the newspaper’s attorney fees after the city violated the Open Public Meetings Act by holding the briefings.
McBride denounced Allah during the meeting after some residents complained that she didn’t condemn the New Black Panty Party member at the rally.
Some felt she had a higher responsibility to the community after she was entangled in controversy in 2019, when she made an anti-Semitic remark during an executive session.
“He does not speak on the views of Kathy McBride, so when everyone in the public wants to say that Kathy should be responsible for what an individual in the community said, that I should be held to a standard that no one else is held to, that I should be reprimanded because Divine Allah spoke ... that’s his constitutional right and freedom of speech. Do I agree with him? No. Did those words come out of my mouth? No.”
Allah’s comments dominated the conversation at the meeting after councilman Joe Harrison walked on a anti-hate-speech resolution decrying what happened at Friday’s rally.
McBride son, Corey, organized the rally to defend his mother after she was repeatedly assailed by Blakeley as illiterate and a prostitute for a man named “Happy Carmichael.”
The rally took a turn when Allah took the mic. He took aim at Gusciora, called Jews “the true enemy, attacked Blakeley for attending a bar mitzvah for a “Jew boy and called whites “crackas.”
McBride said she was furious with Allah and confronted him afterward for putting a cloud over an event that her son worked hard to put together.
“Why would you even do that Divine? What would you come up here and make that statement like that against anyone, knowing that my 19-yearold son hosted this rally?” McBride said. “So don’t you dare, any of you, run up in face and tell me that I have to start being responsible for a man and his actions. Freedom of speech does not allow me to tackle a person on the ground and say, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t have said that.’”
Some of McBride’s colleagues stood up for McBride suggesting a double standard was in play in the capital city.
West Ward councilwoman Robin Vaughn accused Harrison and Gusciora of selectively channeling outrage whenever it suited them.
Vaughn was called on to resign last year when she went on a homophobic tirade against Gusciora and told Harrison to perform oral sex on the city’s openly gay leader.
She slammed city officials for not denouncing Ben Delisle, the housing and economic director, when he allegedly used the N-word to refer to council during a conversation with a city worker.
“Now we’re hearing the word ‘fa**ot’ being used and folks are saying that’s hate speech, but in our own City Hall, the word ‘ni**er’ was used and that didn’t make front page. The cancel culture was not in full force and effect when the word ‘ni**er’ is used . ... We need to apply equity and equality to all our citizens.”
Vaughn blamed the mayor for tolerating rampant sexual harassment and misogyny at City Hall.
“Women are being sexually harassed on the job and we hear nothing from the mayor,” she said. “Their cries and complaints get brushed under the rug. There should not be a man running around City Hall sexually harassing women and women lose their jobs and get ostracized, and get demoted. And this is going on as we speak.”
Vice president Marge Caldwell-Wilson faulted Harrison for remaining silent when women of the governing body were disrespected and “verbally accosted” by Blakeley.
She said a councilman who shall not be named called her an “old bag,” and “racist,” and referred to Muschal’s wife, Theresa, as “white trash.”
“I didn’t see you come up with a resolution after all of that,” she said. “So, yeah, Mr. Harrison, where were you when I needed you.”
At-large councilman Santiago Rodriguez took his turn taking hacks at Blakeley in absentia (he didn’t attend the meeting), saying the councilman attacked senior citizens.
“We have been insulted over and over . ... We have been called senile idiots because we didn’t vote for certain resolutions,” he said, adding he wanted to see the resolution broadened to include Blakeley’s prior broadsides of colleagues.
Calling colleagues “out of control,” Harrison defended himself suggesting he’s spoken out against intolerance whenever it has reared its ugly head in Trenton.
He urged colleagues to vote for the resolution Thursday, adding Trenton needed to send a message to voters that what happened at the rally was unacceptable.
“Our behavior is embarrassing. Everybody all over the state and all over the country sees this ... over and over and over again. But some of my colleagues want to push it under the rug because they’re OK with saying these kinds of words.”
McBride had the last word, using her civic comment to call out all the leaders who remained quiet about Blakeley’s insult when they excoriated over her “Jew down” rhetoric two years ago.
“You had the assemblywoman from the 15th district and the assemblyman call on me to apologize,” she said. “But Mr. Blakeley could come to the public and call me a prostitute as recently as two months ago ... Where’s the ministers at? Where are our Black representatives at when I am called a ‘crackhead’? Where is the [New Jersey Education Association] at when the councilman calls me out by name and then he lies about it, and he only confessed when he’s exposed?”
“Let me tell you this. Don’t come to me with your double standards because i won’t accept them,” McBride added. “And I’m not going to bow down to you with your double standards . ... I am a woman of color. And I am someone’s mother. You don’t get to say anything about Kathy Mcbride and get away with it.”