BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Local protester John Reid reportedly missed a number of anti-police protests over the last few weeks, thanks to spending too much time trying to come up with a funny sign.
“Yeah… I want to support Black Lives Matter, but I can’t just show up with some lame sign that won’t get mentioned in a ‘Best of the Protest’ Buzzfeed list or something,” Reid said, surrounded by pieces of cardboard with scribbled out slogans. “We all have to contribute to the cause in any way that we can, and as a white guy, my way of contributing is through hilarious pop culture references. I was so close to coming up with this brilliant slogan that was like, ‘Being a police officer is like having a tiny penis,’ but then I saw some other piece of shit beat me to it.”
“Hopefully I eventually make it out there to a protest,” Reid continued, “but I won’t until I’m ready.”
Reid’s roommate Kaitlyn Byrd is helping him come up with a good sign, even though she claims she’s “not political.”
“I’m not one for protests, but I love arts and crafts,” Byrd explained. “We have a big corkboard on our wall with just a bunch of ideas right now — pop culture characters like Robocop, little phrases and meme words like, ‘Lit,’ you know? I’m excited to see how we can piece it together! It’s just annoying, because sometimes it’s really hard to think with all the noise outside, what with all the marching going down the block, and those damn police helicopters overhead, those flying bastards. Wait… holy shit. Is that something!?”
Black Lives Matter New York released a statement as an organization, urging protesters to stop trying to make fun signs.
“There are so many protests in New York that you can’t walk outside for more than 20 minutes without accidentally bumping into one. Just go outside and demand change and help dismantle the white supremacist systems already,” the statement read. “Don’t make the protests about yourself. We already have very effective slogans, like ‘defund the police’ — it’s simple and to the point and there’s no way that everyone will read that and completely misinterpret to mean something stupid, like ‘reform the police.’”
In related news, New York City mayor Bill De Blasio was allegedly so moved by a sign he saw at the Barclays Center that read, “Call the police? No thanks I think I’ll call the fucking Ghostbusters,” that he is already making plans to cut the NYPD budget by $5 billion.