A massive police presence greeted revelers attending a spirited street party Friday, in response to confirmed bigot Aaron M. Schlossberg’s xenophobic rant at a New York restaurant earlier this week. Staged outside the attorney’s $1.2 million home, and featuring a mariachi band playing “La Cucaracha,” Jarritos beverages, and a taco truck, the quickly-planned celebration of Latin culture was a protest designed to be thoroughly enjoyed by participants while annoying the target.
Hundreds of people showed up to the party, as did the mariachi band. The atmosphere was jovial and peaceful throughout the afternoon. The most heated things got were when crowds chanted “make racists afraid again.”
The video below is long, but even a quick skim will give you happy goosebumps on this dark day that saw yet another school shooting. Never before has “Hablamos Español” sounded more joyfully snarky.
The Guardian reports that NYPD decided to descend on the party after the folks planning it smartly asked if a permit was necessary; they also report that the cops also seemed to be looking forward to the pop-up festival.
Though nobody’s seen Schlossberg since he ran away from reporters Thursday, and he probably is hiding far away from the site of what looks like a really great party, new information continues to surface that indicates just how far back his long and illustrious career of being a terrible, shrieking, violent bigot might go.
As Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern notes, “Most bigots who hurl racist epithets at minorities in the United States face no serious consequences for their actions.” And until Wednesday, Schlossberg was living that dream.
But for now, this is one bigot who has to face the (mariachi) music.
Clients expressed unwitting surprise at his behavior Thursday night, and some of his fellow members of the New York Bar were shocked to see him in court.
(Schlossberg) was treated like a pariah by fellow attorneys at a Queens court Thursday, lawyers there told The NY Post.
“I noticed him because of that clip online,” one attorney at the Supreme Court in Long Island City said of Aaron Schlossberg.
“I was taken aback that he would have the balls to come to court in front of all of his colleagues after his crazy outburst.”
Another legal eagle added: “Why would he do that? His reputation will be shot. What a dope!”
PhillyVoice was the first to report that Schlossberg, who attended prep school for rich boys in the city of Brotherly Love, was arrested in 2009 for disorderly conduct during Game 1 of the World Series, after making death threats to a cop who was attempting to eject him from the game for being, well, disorderly.
First pitch came at 8:10 p.m. Less than two hours later, according to court records, Schlossberg was “disturbing other patrons and refused to stop.”
Court records stated: “After he was told that he was going to be ejected, the male jumped in the face of Philadelphia Police Officer (Jennifer) Coco and stated ‘You’re fucking dead.’”
While the allegations are weighty, Schlossberg did not face punishment for his alleged actions. At a June 19, 2009 hearing, that charge was dismissed by Judge Karen Y. Simmons.
Must be some special kind of privilege that gets a case dismissed for threatening a cop with death.
Vice also uncovered previously unseen footage of Schlossberg, clad in a Breitbart shirt we’ve already seen (and a MAGA hat on top), harassing attendees at the 100 Days of Failure protest in April 2017.
The video captures a portion of a heated interaction between Schlossberg and a protester who says he’s from the Netherlands. “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Schlossberg says. “You should just say ‘Thank you for letting me in your motherfucking country.’”
“You care about America because you need America, so fuck you,” he continued. “You’re goddamn welcome for letting you in here. You’re welcome.”
Sidenote: why is Schlossberg always with the guy in the red shirt in these videos?
Also on Friday, Schlossberg’s college fraternity kicked him out, 20 years after he graduated.
The fraternity said Friday that his membership had been permanently suspended.
"His racist remarks as expressed in the video in your story are abhorrent and are in sharp contrast to the ideals and principles of Alpha Tau Omega," Wynn Smiley, the CEO of the national fraternity, told BuzzFeed News in a statement.
Even Tomi Lahren, known in many circles as “Nazi Barbie,” took time out at the airport to diss Schlossberg to TMZ, lest anyone think her stances on forced assimilation and immigration on merit are fruit from the same Schlossberg tree.
Wowza.
Just in case anyone’s wondering who’s looking out for Aaron Morris Schlossberg in all of this,The Alantic’s Julia Ioffe has his best interests at heart. The writer donned her devil’s advocate hat and posed a Schlossberg-protective question to her followers, about the widespread response to his bad habit of racist ranting.
Predictably, Ioffe got angry and dismissive when people responded by disagreeing with literally every single word of her tweet.
Meanwhile, think pieces warning about “online vigilantism” are popping up aplenty, featuring false equivalencies to the tragic misidentification of Sunil Tripathi, a Brown University student who had taken his own life weeks before internet sleuths wrongly named him as one of the Boston Marathon bombers. Another, from The Washington Post, actually entreats readers to “Leave Aaron Schlossberg alone,” claiming that the response to Schlossberg’s very well-documented racism is “scarier” than his racism itself.
But fear not, all of those who are worried about the “real” victim in this—Slate’s Stern notes that Schlossberg is unlikely to be disbarred...but that doesn’t mean he can’t (or won’t) be put out of business.
Schlossberg’s behavior was deplorable, discriminatory, and disgusting—he provides a compelling case, in just a few seconds, that he is not fit to practice law. But it’s the public—his landlords, his clients, his employees, and law partners—who must make a decision about whether he loses his livelihood. There is no indication that Schlossberg has misled a court, mishandled funds, or deceived a client. Until evidence of such malpractice emerges, no organ of the state has power to strip him of his law license.
It’s up to the rest of us to ensure that his career goes down the tubes where it belongs.
Stern’s right. But so are the good people behind tonight’s Latin Party. Because everyone knows that when life throws you bigotry, tacos can help.