Rally Turns Ugly When Speaker Calls Gay Mayor Homophobic Slur

A rally to denounce violence against women and the verbal abuse of the Trenton council president devolved into a shocking display of homophobic slurs and other epithets last week. According to a report in The Trentonian, the February 26 rally was called in part to protest past statements by councilman Jerell Blakely against council president Kathy McBride, but Divine Allah of the New Black Panther Party also used the event to call Trenton mayor Reese Gusciora a "white boy" and a "little f*gg*t" for previous disputes between the mayor and councilwoman Robin Vaughn. Allah also called the Jewish community the "true enemy" during the tirade, a portion of which the Mayor later posted to his social media.

"We were here a few months ago when this white-boy mayor, this little f*gg*t... disrespected our sister," Allah said, referring to a phone call exchange with Vaughn. On the call the mayor challenged Vaughn's comments on his record and called her a child. In response, she called him a "pedophile."

Mayor Gusciora, who is gay, posted a two-minute video of the rally to Twitter, noting it was just "another day in Trenton."

The rally was called by Cory McBride, the son of council president Kathy McBride, after transcripts of a closed conference call between city council members from last April were obtained by The Trentonian. The transcripts show councilman Jerell Blakely called McBride an "illiterate crackhead whore" after McBride had earlier called Blakely "a disrespectful piece of shit." For his part, Blakely initially denied using the words and threatened to sue the publication, but later admitted the words were his own and apologized, as did McBride.

McBride, though, was not satisfied with Blakely's apology.

"If you want to apologize to me, then you meet me right out here in the public, where your statement lingers," council president McBride told the crowd at the rally. "Meet me in the street amongst the people and apologize because that's where your words are, they're in the streets now."

Blakely and McBride, like much of the council, have long been at odds. In 2019, Blakely called on McBride to resign after she used the anti-Semitic slur "Jew down" during a council meeting. Blakely has a reputation for calling out the alleged ignorance, incompetence, and prejudice of his fellow council members. He previously called out West Ward councilwoman Robin Vaughn when leaked audio showed her suggesting councilman Joe Harrison should perform oral sex on the mayor who she called "a mother fucking drug addict pedophile" during the tirade.

Allah defended McBride's anti-Semitic comments in the rally, calling it a "figure of speech" and saying "people from the outside" were backing Blakely's calls for the council president's resignation.

"But three weeks later, he's [Blakely] on the front of the paper with the Jew boy, smiling because he's invited to a bar mitzvah for their son. You see how this works. Discredit your own and gain favor with...the true enemy."

McBride later distanced herself from Allah's comments and Blakely told The Trentonian he was "very disappointed" that McBride's rally "included totally irrelevant homophobic attacks against our mayor, clear-cut threats of violence towards me, and wild and hateful anti-Semitic and anti-white conspiracy theories that I am controlled by the Jews and white people."

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