INDReporter

'Protesters' picket The Ind office

by Walter Pierce

The blessings of American democracy were bestowed upon The Independent around mid-day Tuesday as about two dozen protesters marched in front of our downtown office.

The blessings of American democracy were bestowed upon The Independent around mid-day Tuesday as about two dozen "protesters," most of them black and most carrying signs accusing this newspaper of being racist, marched in front of our downtown office.

The titular head of the procession, which paced both sidewalks of the 500 block of Jefferson Street under the watchful eyes of Lafayette Police officers, was Sister Kadijah, a civil rights activist well known in north Lafayette circles who has targeted The Ind before for our unflattering coverage of City-Parish Councilman Brandon Shelvin and former Councilman Chris Williams. We tried to engage Kadijah, to get to the bottom of her grievance, but, lo, she was stolid and uncooperative. She did, however, accept my business card and agree to call this afternoon to explain this personification of our beloved First Amendment.

We're pretty sure the organizer who bankrolled Tuesday's "protest" as well as a strikingly similar "demonstration" a week ago in front of City Court is a disgruntled Lafayette commercial real estate developer with a well-known beef with this paper - a beef so under-cooked and pustular its putrescence wafts over our fair city like the broken wind of a bald, corpulent cyclops in the throes of dyspepsia.