Hipster cafe attacked by masked anti-gentrification mob

[flamingdem]

Cereal Killer: hipster cafe attacked by masked anti-gentrification mob
Shoreditch cafe at the heart of debate over London gentrification daubed with graffiti by anarchists as "scum" customers cower



A café which serves only breakfast cereal was targeted anti-gentrification protesters wielding sticks, stones and flaming torches and wearing pig masks.

Cereal Killer, in Shoreditch, east London, was attacked by a group of around 200 hooded assailants who daubed ‘scum’ on the windows while terrified customers cowered inside.

Police were called to the scene on Brick Lane on Saturday night, which was advertised on social media.

The event, billed as the third “Fuck Parade”, was apparently organised by the anarchist group Class War.

A Facebook statement said: “Our communities are being ripped apart - by Russian oligarchs, Saudi Sheiks, Israeli scumbag property developers, Texan oil-money twats and our own home-grown Eton toffs.

[Recursion]

1. And when upper middle class people live in the burbs it's called "white flight"

No pleasing some people.

[Gman]

4. They create white enclaves

In the inner city. Same difference.

[cheapdate]

2. While I must give high marks for the reference to "Texas oil-money twats"...

and while I harbor anarchist sentiments deep in my heart...I think the choice of targets here is way off.

There are much more deserving targets in London. A cafe serving breakfast cereal to "hipsters" is a stupid, possibly undeserving, and irrelevant target -- not worth the effort expended, which could have been better used somewhere else.

[1939]

3. It is something

for the crowd advocating "torches and pitchforks" type violence to keep in mind. They just might be on the receiving end rather than the giving end. Revolutions often eat their young.

[T_i_B]

5. Bit of a stupid target for direct action

Even if a cereal cafe is not my thing, I'd much rather have one of those in my neighborhood than another bookmakers or payday loans place.

If you want a crappy area to improve, then you want people to come in and set up businesses, even if they might have silly beards and pretentious tendencies.

[flamingdem]

6. It's an almost hipster-esque idea to dress as a pig halloween style

and attack a cafe. However they did bring attention to a huge problem impacting many cities right now. The hipster demographic wants by necessity must push out the previous tenants to make room for them - and they are a big generation. That plus developers creating consortiums to blunt risk and acquire properties - then raise rents is the other factor, the bigger issue.

[T_i_B]

7. I disagree

If we're being honest, this looks no better then the sort of nonsense that groups like the English Defense League get up to at mosques and may even be viewed by some as being more motivated by a dislike of beards and check shirts than any genuine gripe. It discredits the anti-gentrification cause.

I heard one of the "protesters" on the radio this lunchtime and I lost interest in anything he had to say when he admitted that they came in from Warwick to attack the cafe. This wasn't even close to being a protest by locals.

Also, the reason why a lot of these people head towards East London is because they've been priced out of the nicer parts of London, so if the people pretending to be concerned about this were genuine about improving things in East London they would be engaging with the hipsters rather than attacking their businesses.

[Hortensis]

8. An Englishwoman I was speaking with lives in a tiny apartment that

takes most of her and her husband's combined income. The housing shortage is tremendous, and the keep England green laws limiting land development, only one contributing factor, were a favorite target of dissatisfaction for her, not immigrants.

I suspect the larger "anti-gentrification" movement is full of mainstream middle-class people like them who are being priced out of cities, not this article's noisy counterparts to our own noisy extremists. They'd like a better life that just isn't available to them right now.

[Matariki]

9. Like the city I live in

people priced out of the neighborhood while yet another 'boutique' restaurant or bar goes in.

[Hortensis]

10. Sigh, it's definitely happening all over here too. I assume "Cascadia"

is in my favorite part of the country, the one my own family is from.

It's not only vital cultural and work centers, and convenience that the working classes are being priced out of, but more and more of the beautiful areas of our nation are being taken over by the very wealthy. Working classes are being pushed out of breezy coastal areas into hot interiors, from pretty hilly neighborhoods onto sterile, viewless flats. As an appraiser in SoCal, I watched it happen up close, and it's accelerated since we left.

[artislife]

11. I live in "Cascadia"

I rent a mother in law apartment.

And there are about 40 people who are waiting for me to give notice. But no way. The landlord and I get along very, very well. I lost my condo in 2010 and renting from anyone is very difficult. Everyone runs through property managers and run background checks. There is no face to face and explaining how hard I tried to keep everything together and how hard it was juggling bills when my business all but dried up. I worked, did small jobs here and there and tried to keep roommates. But the downstairs neighbors were chain smokers and it permeated my condo. My little dream, out in the town as one older woman said "where all the poor people live" crashed and I may never fully escape it.

The bright spot is that my landlord says if she moves, she will take me with her if I want to move, too. That is a good landlord.

[Hortensis]

12. What would we do without friends? Sounds like you've

managed to create some "good luck" for yourself in the midst of the uncontrollable.

We're in a better position, no devastating hits to date, but not so well bolstered that a good swat from life couldn't bring us down. One thing I like about the old vacation mobile home we purchased for almost nothing, on a 1/3 acre surrounded on two sides by pond and marsh, is that, no matter what might go wrong, we could always give up everything else to go there and still live in comfort in a lovely location. BTW, another backup reason for purchasing was that so many people have been ruined by recent large forces that we could always find good folk to rent it to.

It sounds as if you live in a fairly lively area with things going on, though, and that is really worth something. Quiet is quite inexpensive, so it's just a good thing for us that we like that too.

[artislife]

13. Good plan

I wish only the best for you and yours!

[Hortensis]

14. We'll see... It's in both hurricane and flood zones

Did I mention that? Actually, replacing it would involve not too much more than hauling any debris off and another old one on. (OLD MHs are a dime a dozen in some areas, even free, and very inexpensive to fix up comparatively.)

A big thing on our side is, though, that we've done the "build the dream house" thing and now could live very happily there, not feeling we'd missed a thing.

The best right back to you, Artislife.