Massive #DontMuteDC event at 14th and U features go-go music, dirt bikes

Video sample of the go-go music and scene with the dirt bikes/ATV's 1 min 24 sec

On the 23rd of April, the #DontMuteDC movement sparked by a single "New Washingtonian" attemting to silence go-go music at MetroPCS returned to 14th and U sts NW. This time the protest had a new demand: fully funding DC schools in Wards 7 and 8. For the evening a touch of Anacostia was brought to 14th st as go-go music pumped and dirt bike/ATV riders showed up to cheers from the crowd.

MPD was powerless to do anything about the young folks on dirt bikes and ATV's. Due to prior problems with video of dirt bike riders being used in an attempt to get warrants (J20 style), most of the riders were masked up. The masked riders also brought by their appearance some of the spirit of Baltimore to a heavily gentrified area in DC. In the background was a sign advertising new luxury apartments on U st, hopefully those will stay vacant for a while after the swirling scene of go-go music, dirt bikes, and ATV's played out almost in front of them. During the Uprising in Baltimore, groups of dirt bikes and even modified cars were used both as transportation and to carry out tactical missions in the street marches.

Also, dirt bikers riding with what amounted to immunity created a loud response to the resident of the Shay who started the whole thing by whining to T-Mobile aboutgo-go music on speakers at Metro PCS. That same message can be heard loud and clear by all the other residents of the Shay, and of every condo and luxury apartment within several miles of 14th and U or of 7th and Florida. It was heard loudly enough when #DontMuteDC started that the Shay's management dissociated themselves from the entire dispute saying it was one resident's issue. No doubt they could hear the hornet's nest in the streets they had stirred up buzzing louder and louder.

Gentrification threatens all of traditional DC with destruction, and now people are fighting back. That complainer in the Shay was but the spark plug, not the fuel powering the engine of resistance to "New Washingtonians" who want Black people to shut up their musicand their voices, and who are now even asking Howard University to move out of DC so more condos can come and they have another place to walk their dogs.

Now it is not enough for a single yuppie to shut his yap so Go-Go can return to MetroPCS. People want affordable housing and schools their kids can actually attend without just flushing their time down the toilet, the kind of schools upscale "New Washingtonians" enjoy in Wards 1 and 2, or through their expensive private schools. There is more than enough money to go around with the billions spent by condo builders and corporate lobbyists within the borders of DC.