The Mill Avenue Resistance reports are written by Kyt Dotson as an extension of anthropological research on the population of Mill Avenue in Tempe, Arizona. Since the Resistance does their protests Friday and Saturday there are two reports a week. The supporting material not related to the Resistance reports can be found on the Under the Hills blog for Saturday, January 17th 2009 (when it goes up.)
Shawn3 at Urban Outfitters had a larger group with him made up of two new preachers, and three small children aged from possibly seven years old to ten, and also William the late gradeschooler was also there with a high end amateur DSLR camera. New people in Shawn3’s group I’m told were brothers of his. The first guy had short brown hair, a scruffy badly kempt beard, blue and yellow single-stripe shirt like a sports outfit. His mirror speech consisted of ignoring all comers, and pretty much only circled around to shouting, “Put your faith in Christ,” and nothing new or original. The other had long brown hair, a visible moustache with a much better cultivated chin and lip beard.
Signs visible:
STOP SINNING
And
TRUST JESUS
Also:
EVOLUTION IS A LIE
SalvationJunction.com
Urban Outfitters started the night with their doors wide open, taking in public visitors to and fro—but shortly after 9pm when Shawn3’s group started preaching, they closed them without a word. Shawn3 has become well known for abusively loud preaching on his megaphone at decibels that exceed anything respectful of the street itself and not only is his megaphone extremely loud, he shouts into it with the full brassado of his vocal ability.
At one point close to 9:20pm the Resistance lent their speaker to a Christian passerby who didn’t like what he was hearing, he quickly took to the amplification to tell one of Shawn3’s brothers that he was committing a sin of pride. Another Christian, Vince, also took up the speaker for more than half the night in attempts to talk to Shawn3‘s crowd who roundly ignored him, rebuffing him and everyone else with their repugnantly overloud preaching.
At around 9:45 Shawn3 and his insanely loud megaphone use went back to work again. Damaging people’s hearing and generally abusing the public trust with the decibels of his preaching and spent about four minutes shouting over seven times: “Read your Bible!” All in a row.
Over at the Post Office I met a young black man named Dre who is one of Vocab’s friends and apparently part of that crew—I don’t know if he raps also, I should have asked, it seems like most of them are good at it. He says that he came to Christianity about two and a half years ago and only very recently started coming out to Mill Ave. He wore thick rimmed spectacles and a cap, held a polite voice and vaguely South Western diction. A bit of obvious mirror speech, but unlike others he didn’t regard my questions as disruptions and actually held a discussion with me; amid he mostly just encouraged me to not let the Bible “be just another book in my repertoire.” But admitted that while he normally doesn’t like to appeal to emotion that sometimes he is concerned about other people going to Hell. Probably a good position for him to have because most other cultures who are not Christian see the use of the mention of Hell as a coercion by threat and find it extremely insulting and disrespectful.
Omar arrived on the Ave around 9:30pm or earlier before I returned to Urban Outfitters and potential cochlear damage from Shawn3’s abusively loud preaching. He had with him his new sign reading, “GODLESS 4 GOODNESS” stenciled in white on black.
At about 10pm, Shawn3 and his crew start to break apart, flip around their sign, and simply fold into themselves. During the entire time that they were set up Papa Soul didn’t play a single chord; he set up sometime between 8 and 9pm and stayed pretty much to himself until the preachers cut down and left.
Al remained at the PO with the other Way of the Master preachers and were pretty much ignored by the Resistance for the entire night.
All the way until midnight the Resistance kept shop in front of Urban Outfitters. There was no use of amplification except earlier by the preachers. After they left an actual worthwhile-for-existence sound level settled and a lot of small contestations were to be had. I spent some time speaking with John and a blonde woman with spectacles whose name now escapes me.
Kazz and Omar remained as the only components of the protest venue and both spoke with individual people. Kazz with Emilio and Omar with two individuals I did not recognize.
The night dwindled from there.
