Sinclair Skinner showed up, uninvited, at my neighborhood’s local monthly neighborhood meeting.  The group that puts on the meetings is called the United Neighborhood Coalition (http://www.u-n-c.org).  When I say that Mr. Skinner was uninvited I mean that he had no reason to be there.  The group is specific in it’s bylaws that it is there to serve the people in a specific boundary.  Mr. Skinner lives 10-15 blocks south of the boundaries.  The group welcomes anyone who wishes to come, including Mr. Skinner, so long as they are not disruptive.

Mr. Skinner was a nuisance during the entire meeting.  He continually would yell out from the audience not allowing the meeting to continue as normal.  He was very irate about Temperance Hall applying for its liquor license and he was trying to drum-up support for his cause.  How could Mr. Skinner be so against this new liquor establishment yet so in favor of the “The House” strip club’s license a year or so ago? 

Mr. Skinner was clearly being a hypocrite and the informed members of the UNC challenged him on this after the meeting.  Mr. Skinner was being very belligerent and his argument was holding no water with the residents left to argue with him.  I knew, based on my past experiences with Mr. Skinner and from the “Gramzilla” posters, why he was fighting so hard against this new establishment.  Mr. Skinner acted confused when I implied that he had other reasons than what he was stating for opposing the liquor license.  Finally, I told him that the reason he supported the strip club was because it was a black-owned-business.

Mr. Skinner erupted.  He got right-up in my face, throwing chairs out of his way to get to me as fast as humanly possible.  He was screaming and yelling at me in a threatening manner.  I couldn’t tell you what he said because I was too frightened to remember exactly.  Luckily the local police had attended the meeting and were still hanging around.  They immediately broke-up the situation and separated Mr. Skinner from me.  After a few minutes of cooling down I went over and apologized to Mr. Skinner.  Telling him I was sorry if I had offended him.  I said it was obviously an emotional issue for both of us.  We shook hands and left the meeting.

I pondered for a week or so on if I had crossed the line.  I wondered if I was wrong in my assessment of Mr. Skinner.  I genuinely felt bad for making him so upset.  I wrote a very long apology letter that I never ended up sending because a week or so after the meeting a flier began circulating around the neighborhood that reinforced my initial take on Sinclair Skinner.  Please read the Georgia Avenue Defender section for more details.