Parade mocked deaths of black men months before Sterling incident

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In February, when Baton Rouge hosted its annual Spanish Town Parade celebrating Mardi Gras, a prominent theme was mocking the Black Lives Matter movement.

A float declared “Pink Lives Matter” and showed a flamingo getting beaten with police batons with a sign around its neck saying “I can’t breathe.” The flamingo is the mascot of the Spanish Town Parade, which is known for its inappropriate humor. The flamingo was an obvious reference to Eric Garner, who told police that he couldn’t breathe just before he was killed in that encounter.

Another float joked about “Freddie Gray Goose” — Freddie Gray was another black man killed by police, which sparked large riots in Baltimore — and some attendees waved Confederate flags, the Baton Rouge Advocate reported.

Doug Cossman, a board member for the group that oversees the parade, told the Baton Rouge Advocate he’s sorry if anyone was offended but “we’re not about to start censoring anybody’s free speech rights.”




Gary Chambers, the publisher of a local magazine who wrote about the float, told Fusion he thought the floats went too far — especially since it happened in February, during Black History Month.

“They make fun of everybody, but when you go to the point of mocking an unarmed African-American man who lost his life in the streets of this nation, I just don’t find that funny,” Chambers told Fusion. “Every year they do this … and we’re supposed to be OK with it.”