I JUST got back from doing something that I rarely do: I went to the beach. I crossed the causeways, shelled out $4 in parking, sat on the pier and ate a chili dog.
I watched other people enjoying ice cream cones, sunning, shopping, sipping pina coladas and tentatively dipping their toes into the surf on a sunny-cool afternoon.
And it reminded me what this story is all about: a day at the beach. This weekend, when thousands of African-American college students come to Tybee Island seeking the same experience, they’ll get something different.
Some businesses will close. And the City of Tybee Island will welcome them with barricades.
I didn’t know the difference between a French barricade and Jersey barricade until the City of Tybee Island issued a press release explaining them and their use during Orange Crush, the black spring break. (French: think bike rack. Jersey: think construction site.)
The City will deploy them to control traffic (and drugs and alcohol, it says!).
The idea that “young” and “black” deserve word association with “drugs” and “alcohol” (my first association is “gifted,” a Nina Simone reference) lies, I think, at the heart of what Orange Crush has become: not the simple, everyday, all-American thing that it is, but instead some kind of local Password game where the wrong answer means “racist.”
I’m happy to report that this year’s Orange Crush has brought some needed changes that make the City of Tybee Island, at least officially, legally and on paper, less racist.
The City also will deploy the French and Jersey barricades, they say, during the St. Patrick’s and July 4th weekends. Equal inconvenience.
Also, the City won’t enforce an ordinance from 2017 and 2018, the one that restricted public consumption of alcohol and amplified music: but only on the weekends of Orange Crush. That policy rightly earned its nickname, the “Jim Crow Ordinance,” and prompted federal intervention.
It’s hard to say how much of these improvements were, as the City says, “voluntarily initiated” by Tybee Island, or the work of a handful of dedicated anti-racist citizens combined with a guy in shades from the U.S. Department of Justice. (I actually don’t know if he wore shades, but all feds should.)
Julia Pearce met the guy.
“We’re still not at a point in our development where we can sit and talk face to face about each other,” says Pearce, a founder of Tybee MLK, who says the negotiations over these changes were so contentious, the parties had to meet in separate rooms with fed shady going between them. “There’s so much fear.”
What hasn’t changed is the fact that the City of Tybee Island is just as determined as ever to crack down on this “unpermitted” event. “Unpermitted!”
Watch this word and how it’s used. St. Patrick’s Day and July 4th also are unpermitted events, outside of the former’s signature parade and the latter’s municipal fireworks displays. And yet only Orange Crush promoters get a stern letter threatening civil and legal penalties for theirs.
Of course, whom would you threaten for St. Patrick’s Day? The bishop? Or July 4th? The Continental Congress? Frankly, Orange Crush’s biggest problem is that it is, in fact, a big and scheduled event promoted by a handful of people to profit from that all-American “Jack & Diane,” “sucking on a chili dog” and “Under the Boardwalk” that we all love.
Orange Crush promoters would do themselves and everybody a favor by working with the City to permit their event. Would that solve the real issue?
Perhaps Tybee Island Mayor Jason Buelterman summed it up best when he told me, “No matter what we do on this, people will be mad at us one way or another.” I’m sure Orange Crush feels the same.
Because I didn’t walk down that pier today with the weight of hundreds of years of socially constructed bias and fear against me. As long as large numbers of young and black people make large numbers of old and white people fear for their lives, it’s an ice cream cone, pina colada and surf toe-dip just over the mountaintop – the promised land.
This article appears in Apr 24-30, 2019.
Nice RACIST article Orlando. Totally unbiased,, hahaaa.
I supposed you never thought that the Orange Crush attendees have EARNED the reception they get.
I have talked to tons of people that visited from out of town to Tybee and were never informed that these people planned to come and trash the beach and surrounding areas, and then leave it to volunteers to clean up after their mess, not to mention ruining a weekend at Tybee for tons of tourists that could find nothing about this drunk and drug-fest online.
But don’t let THAT stop you from writing your little slanted Racist article.
Thank you Orlando for writing about Orange Crush and Tybee. People say it is playing the race card- well Americas ace card has been race from Americas inception.
Tybee like America needs truth and reconciliation. We can not have truth if we cannot sit and talk about uncomfortable truths in the same room.
Orange Crush is 32 years old. Each year we have the same ridiculous conversations…Basically on Tybee, We have racism without racists and History without Truth
You obviously havent seen what our beach looks like at 7 am on Orange Crush weekend. If participants cleaned up after themselves instead of leaving it for the locals to clean up, we probably wouldnt even care about people getting drunk on the beach. Its not race, its whether someone respects our home
They clean up. Smh
Tybee has always unwelcome Orange Crash. It has nothing to with trash,traffic,or noise for that matter. At the end of the day Tybee and the people who have over developed a once small beautiful island plan and sample dont want the island full of black young African Americans on what they think is their Island. I was Disgusted and hurt to see all the barricades yesterday and I left that our room that was there the welcome any orange crushers. In my 45 years of life on Tybee I have never seen such a ugly and racist thing. I had to explain to my 11 year old daughter who is half African American what and and why Tybee had all of the barricades and roads blocked off yesterday. Same on you Tybee way to show us all that yes Racism and hate is still out there.
What a well written article. We are a family from Maryland who visited Savannah last weekend. We wanted to take a trip to Tybee Island on Saturday April 20th. We were concerned and scared = it took 45 minutes to get on the island and the police presence was shocking- we couldn’t even park and see the water. We turned around not knowing what was going on- there was a police mobile unit- blockades- cones!!! You would have thought there was an impending war about to start! Very disappointed in the leadership there—–blown up worries.
When they have the Beach Bum parade and event, I want to see if this same police presence will be there. This is shameful that in 2019 we are still fighting exclusion. I attended the first Orange Crush event decades ago and this is an event that should be welcomed by all as a weekend to highlight all that Tybee has to offer. We need to do better.
Great read Orlando!!!
Thank you PERIOD
It amazes me how people think but then again those who benefited from certain privileges especially “white” could careless the ugly stain that still exist in this country. So the next event say Saint Patrick day where thousands of tourist trash my town should we have police take extreme measures like the city of Tybee. I wonder if Savannah has the guts to do so and watch how tourism decline. To the folks who read this article and replied and never got the message you are a Dinosaur that need to be buried beneath the earth. Your time is up and your way of thinking is dangerous just like your President. You worrying about trashing the city well look at the Squares after St. Patrick Day. How about Tybee embrace the event and instead of crying foul and fear work with the committee or whoever with the city of Tybee. You want to be so excluded from the rest of the world. Drive in town to do your dirt then hid to your little island blacks one time occupied when you didn’t want it. Remember that aye! I know you don’t want to talk about that. Cowards hate to….