Blue Cat Cafe CLOSED - The Boycott On the Property Remains!
Defend Our Hoodz is proud to announce, after three years of hard-fought struggle, the boycott against Blue Cat Cafe is victorious and the gentrifying, white supremacist hub is now closed for good. A moving truck was seen removing the last of their things yesterday, Feb. 4, 2019. We're told that they've had irregular hours for months and are no longer able to pay their rent.
Now that they are shut down, we continue to uphold the boycott against the landlords, Jordan French and Darius Fisher (also known as F&F), who violently demolished the Jumpolin Piñata store in February 2015.
Any business attempting to lease the space will face the same fierce boycott we have held against Blue Cat that has led to their closing.
From Blue Cat's opening day in October 2015, until now, we've maintained a militant boycott. The demand three years ago was to not provide F&F rent money because of their demolition of the Jumpolin pinata store. When Rebecca Gray, the owner of Blue Cat, ignored this demand, we pursued a strategy of direct action, to make Blue Cat so unprofitable that they couldn’t afford to pay F&F.
For all those who have stood with us, and seen through the lies, the distortions of gentrifiers, and even attacks from supposed community leaders about our organizing and group, we thank you immensely for your support. This victory is yours as well, especially if you have ever joined us on the picket line or spread the word about the boycott of Blue Cat Cafe.
For anyone who defends gentrification, Blue Cat Cafe, the scumbag landlords Jordan French and Darius Fisher, and ignores Blue Cat’s alliance with nazis and trump supporters, ignores their countless customer reviews of animal neglect and poor sanitation, and denies their employee testimonials of abusive management and wage theft - you stand with all of the racism and exploitation that the landlords, Blue Cat, and their white supremacist allies have carried out.
If Blue Cat Cafe and Rebecca Gray, ever deserved empathy (which they didn’t), she gave up any supposed high ground when she invited her Nazi brother and his fellow fascists to organize a picket-busting gang to attack us. Those who attack us and defend her are directly on the side of exploitation and white supremacy, and today, your side lost the battle.
Some may claim that we didn’t have anything do with their closing, and it wasn’t our tactics that won this. This is pure fantasy. Blue Cat Cafe is leaving because they couldn’t withstand the unified force of people militantly holding them accountable. We made her Gentrification project unprofitable.
The fact is, if a cat cafe were to be successful anywhere, it would be Austin, where the dominant, mostly white, liberal ruling-class is notorious for valuing animal life over Black, Chicano, Immigrant, and working class people. We are an animal-obsessed city, and for as long as Blue Cat has existed, people have used the cats as a shield for the actions of Blue Cat Cafe, F&F, and the Nazis themselves. The landlords knew what they were doing by leasing to Blue Cat - they are also in the PR game. They thought cute cats would get people to shut up.
But, it was our resolve and principled struggle against Blue Cat Cafe that has led to this outcome, not the same tired paths of those who want to surrender at the first sign of a long and difficult fight, especially one that will not build political careers or bring in non-profit funding.
Blue Cat Cafe started their first day of business crossing a community boycott against the landlords, Jordan French and Darius Fisher. Blue Cat Owner Rebecca Gray thought she knew better than the community and those saying to decrease the profit from the site after F&F violently demolished the Jumpolin Piñata Store. She was notified multiple times, asked by the Jumpolin family and the barrio not to move in, but she ignored their calls. For this, Blue Cat was picketed on its opening day, and on a regular basis ever since.
Those first pickets were tame - but Rebecca Gray consistently escalated things. Our pickets would stay on the sidewalk, but she would insert herself into our picket, bumping into us, and like a soccer player taking a dive, fake that we pushed her. She would get in people’s faces, like the entitled middle-class business owner that she is, and try to argue with us, when we had made it clear that the only thing to discuss was if she would close her business.
Our resolve caused her to grow more and more unhinged each time she encountered us. At one picket, she came out to the picket line drunk, and proceeded to roll around on the ground, making lewd gestures that disturbed those of us there.
We have known that Rebecca is a alcoholic and has multiple DWIs. While racists and ignorant people claim that working-class people in the barrio are drug-users and don’t deserve to keep their communities because they are irresponsible - the owner of Blue Cat Cafe was a dangerous alcoholic who drives with a suspended license, endangering others in the community. This is the blatant hypocrisy of gentrifiers and small business owners (of all backgrounds) who believe they are harder working or more noble than those who don’t own a business. The fact is that Rebecca needs professional help and has no place operating a small business.
Over time, numerous customer and employee reports began to emerge of animal neglect and employee mistreatment. Kittens were adopted out with diseases. Liquid Feces would be left on the floor and employees would pay for animal care out of their own pockets. Employees also reported wage theft and abusive treatment from Rebecca.
Our struggle escalated when Rebecca accused our organization of an incident that occurred in October 2016. Someone tagged the building and glued the locks shut. We don’t know who did this, yet Rebecca clearly implied it was us to the Austin-American Statesman, who never contacted us for comment.Because of this sloppy reporting, Alex Jones of Infowars himself picked up the story, and began to direct his rabid, racist Trump-loving followers to attack our organization. Rebecca did an interview with Infowars, where she referred to us as ‘hate group’ and ‘terrorists’.
From that point on, the alt-right and white supremacists made Blue Cat Cafe their own pet cause. The interviews with infowars helped fuel her gofundme, which raised over $15,000, including a $500 donation, left with a comment that said: ‘I hope these protesters die a slow horrible death’ and other violent and racist statements.
We have had regular white supremacist trolls ever since. Nazis in town for the “White Lives Matter” rally in November 2016 spoke of plans to visit the cafe and called to offer their admiration and support.But this still wasn’t the full view of her white supremacist ties. We began to notice a man lurking around our March for Jumpolin in February 2017.
Not long after, he was seen at another white supremacist event, an attack on the revolutionary May Day march, and he was identified as Paul Gray, Rebecca’s brother.And then, we came face to face with Paul when Rebecca invited him to ‘protect’ Blue Cat from our pickets. He gathered fellow Nazis, including Erik Sailors, and others who would later go to Charlottesville, and attacked our picket line on site, before we had even reached the sidewalk of Blue Cat Cafe.
While they attacked first, we and our allies defended ourselves. Erik Sailors, who has gained national notoriety since then, left the encounter with a split head, stitches, and a permanent scar of his stupidity. It has been revealed that Erik and Paul both were two Nazis who were putting up white supremacist propaganda on the Texas State campus in San Marcos in December 2017.
For being uncompromising about gentrification and Blue Cat Cafe, for fighting Nazis, we have earned the insults of people from many backgrounds. And while some may vote for Trump, and others think they’re liberal - they share one thing in common - they took the side of a gentrifier with ties to Nazis because of their own delusions of what is the ‘proper’ way to fight gentrification.
But we know they are on the wrong side of history. We stand in solidarity with militant anti-gentrification groups across the country, especially our comrades in Boyle Heights LA. They too have maintained longstanding boycotts against art galleries invading their community, and because of their resolve, have seen their movement grow, and one by one, the galleries start to fall. The forces of capitalism are beginning to fail in their strategy of using art galleries, or quirky coffee shops and cat cafes, as their forward guard of gentrification.
We know this is only the beginning. Other communities must take up the militant anti-Gentrification fight. But we know that capitalist interests will become more vindictive and more violent in protecting their investments. They will try to target leaders, and anyone affiliated with them. They have money and investments on the line.As Blue Cat Cafe demonstrated when they originally defied the boycott, the on-the-ground gentrifiers don’t think they are responsible for enabling exploiters like F&F, yet they paid rent into their pockets every month and helped shield F&F this whole time.
Now, with their space vacant, we warn anyone even considering moving into the space vacated by Blue Cat Cafe - we will go ten times harder against you than we did against Blue Cat. While Rebecca faked ignorance about the boycott, any business owner claiming the same will be exposed as complete liar.
If working-class Austinites truly want to fight gentrification, and not just feel defeated by it, they must take on the struggle of making sure that gentrifiers, developers, and other exploiters feel as uncomfortable and scared as the working-class feels in the face of gentrification.Gentrification destroys communities, leaves people homeless, leaves children traumatized, the elderly stressed and strained to survive. It is a war, and the longer that we act like it can be fought through fake peace - through going through the system that creates gentrification itself, the longer the working-class will feel defeated. But we are hopeful.
We didn’t give up on our fight, and we have won a small battle. We continue to fight new fronts, like Lou’s Bodega, or our ongoing campaign to stop the ‘Domain on Riverside’ that threatens thousands of students and workers. There are many others on the horizon, but we have been tested and will continue to grow stronger.
Join The Struggle - Fight Gentrification with Revolution!
Boycott the Landlords, Jordan French and Darius Fisher, who Demolished Jumpolin!
Destroy Profits from Violent Displacement!
Build the Militant Anti-Gentrification Movement and Fight for the Working class!
