Last Friday, Culture Night in Dublin, the Tola Vintage shop in Temple Bar's annual block party was shut down by the Gardaí, and three people were arrested. The police actions were met with criticism for the use of excessive force and suggestions of an underlying racial motivation.
The Gardaí's statement about the matter cited "public safety concerns" but that doesn't explain how an innocuous gathering of people inside and outside a vintage shop escalated into baton-charging, threats of pepper-spray and a disproportionate number of guards clearing the busy Temple Bar area with an unwarranted heavy-handiness.
The incident happened, in an increasingly hostile environment for minority communities in Ireland. Why was a block party in Temple Bar, that was giving no immediate pressing trouble, met with violence, while violence at far right protests and the burning of buildings earmarked for asylum seekers goes unpunished?
Ireland is seeing an increasing number of anti-immigrant accounts online, and the verbal abuse of people of colour has increased, while just this week, the government’s Justice Minister Helen McEntee has dropped the incitement or hate speech sections of the Criminal Justice Bill.
On this week's podcast, we talk to Silent Jee, a DJ on the night about what went down from his perspective, and how the guards showing up at the block party is nothing new. We explore how these kinds of actions are familiar to black and POC in Ireland's creative community. We talk to Mo Cultivation's Bekah Molony about what allies and peers can do and how nothing has changed since the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Things have arguably gone the other way.
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