No More Cats at Blue Cat Cafe...Except in the Freezer!?
We are excited to announce that Blue Cat Cafe has lost its primary supplier of cats, Fuzzy Texan Animal Rescue. Fuzzy Texan were secretly supplying animals up until they abruptly announced on July 2 on facebook they were breaking ties with the cafe and that they would be removing all 18 of the cats at the cafe on July 3. But, while there are apparently no more adoptable cats at Blue Cat, a former employee claims, no joke, that Rebecca Gray has a dead cat in the freezer!
Fuzzy Texan was one of the groups that had supplied to cats to Blue Cat Cafe ever since we successfully pressured the Austin Humane society to cut ties in October 2017. After this, Blue Cat continued to find a cat supply, but there were agreements between suppliers and Blue Cat to keep the relationship hidden to avoid bad publicity. Fuzzy Texans breaking on their own is a sign of deep crisis at Blue Cat. When we found out that they would be removing the cats between 7 and 8PM on July 3, some of our group and supporters went down there to document the removal.
A statement on their facebook page shares some vague reasons that they didn’t feel the cats were being cared for properly, and they throw in the bogeyman of vandalism, yet again. We know though that the operator of Fuzzy Texan stated that she didn’t believe the claims that Rebecca is a racist. Ok, then what do you call someone who asks her Nazi brother to protect her cafe or stands by as Nazis attack people? A nazi!
When we arrived to Blue Cat, we watched as volunteers went in with empty pet carriers and came out with crying cats. It was a little sad at times. Contrary to wild rumors, many of us are animal lovers, and the kitties crying was a sad sight, but we were glad they were finally getting out of there.
We asked one volunteer what it was like inside. They said that there was a strong smell of ammonia, i.e. cat pee, and it was not a place you would want to linger and have a cup of coffee. One of the volunteers noticed a pregnant cat, and asked Becky when she started taking pregnant cats (watch video here). Becky said she was a stray she had trapped.
The cops did show up, but for once, they weren’t called on us. Apparently, Fuzzy Texan called them out of fear that Rebecca would not be cooperative with their extraction operation. The cops came and spoke to Fuzzy Texan volunteers for about a minute, and left without incident.We’ve been hard at work on the campaign to #defendRiverside, but that doesn’t mean we’ve forgotten about the nazi-aligned Blue Cat Cafe, which has been our longest campaign. We’ve known they were in dire straits, and heard rumors that Rebecca lived out of the cafe, a clear violation of local zoning and restaurant code.
Speaking of code, a former employee claims that when Marla, one of Rebecca’s cats, died six months ago, instead of finding an appropriate way to bury or cremate it, she put the cat in the freezer. This employee has called for ‘Justice for Marla’. This macabre situation should give pause to anyone still thinking that Blue Cat Cafe should remain open.
We have no sympathy for Rebecca Gray, who has only stayed afloat this long thanks to her alliance with people who think gentrification is a good thing and with white supremacists and the alt-right, including her own brother. They have injected money and support into the business simply to send a message to our community that they will uphold gentrification and racism to spite us.
Rebecca made her bed that she now lies in when she crossed the community boycott against her landlords, Jordan French and Darius Fisher, the men who tore down the Jumpolin piñata store. She dug herself in further when she welcomed the support of Alex Jones, Infowars, and her nazi brother, Paul Gray.
And even though people will wildly claim this was all our fault - the fact is no one but Rebecca and her supporters allowed the cafe to reach this condition. We didn’t allow cat pee to permeate the air in the cafe. We didn’t cram 18 cats into a small room. We didn’t force Rebecca to go on Infowars and begin her alliance with the alt-right, or call on her nazi brother and friends to ‘protect’ her cafe. And we definitely didn’t put a dead cat in the freezer.
We have not picketed Blue Cat Cafe since February of this year. We have been busy building power against gentrification in the Riverside Area, and this surprise announcement took us so off guard that we had to reschedule some planned canvassing.
We knew we had to be there to document and watch this happen, but we also won’t declare total victory yet. As we have said, Blue Cat Cafe has lost their cat supply in the past and kept on going. They resorted to secret partnerships, and clearly taking it upon themselves to trap stray cats. Fuzzy Texan was one of these secret partnerships. It’s a shame because Blue Cat Cafe’s record of gentrification and white supremacy is clear. For many of these ‘animal lovers’ though, human issues are less important than animal ones, especially when they affect working-class brown and black communities.
But even if they take the typical white liberal position, customers and employees have shared numerous testimonies of animal neglect and employee mistreatment that many of Austin’s animal lovers have ignored. Fuzzy Texan, like many others, think they know better than the employees and community on the front lines. As we said, Fuzzy Texan operator, Rachel Nicole, on facebook, even as she was breaking ties, claimed that Rebecca isn’t a racist, or think it’s racist to ask nazis to protect your cafe.
So we still won’t put it past another racist, oblivious animal rescue operation to flout the boycott and partner with Blue Cat. Or we won’t put it past Rebecca and her dwindling supporters to start trapping more stray cats or cruising Craig’s List ads for animals. Blue Cat Cafe is a capitalist operation, not only as a small business, but as pusher of gentrification in the historic barrio. Maintaining it is a goal of Rebecca, the landlords Jordan French and Darius Fisher, other gentrifiers, and the reactionary liberals, Trump supporters, and white supremacists who see Blue Cat Cafe as their pet cause. Capitalists will go to extreme lengths to maintain their charades in the name of profit, and especially to send a message to show how little they care about what the community wants.
Capitalism has to keep its crimes hidden away, just like Marla the cat is hidden in the freezer. But we will continue to apply heat and confront the shady dealings of exploiters in our community.
Our fight isn’t over until the cat lady sings! The boycott of Blue Cat Cafe will continue, and even if they shut down, the boycott of the landlords Jordan French and Darius Fisher (F&F) will go on. Any business or operation that tries to cross the picket line will face the same resistance, but with even greater fire!