The journey to nowhere continues!
For the past two days, the world has stood still while
various theories have been tossed around for a leash-pull
incident at Venice Beach, California.
You first read about it, here, BREAKING: “WORLD’S LAMEST SURF
ASSAULT” CHALLENGED BY “AGGRESSIVE LEASH PULL INCIDENT” IN
VENICE!, enjoyed the brief but to-the-point response
in BLACK GIRLS SURF’S RHONDA HARPER:
“I’M GOING TO TELL BEACHGRIT, NO FUCKING COMMENT!”
and, yesterday, the reveal that maybe the leash-puller had been
unfairly set upon in BUT WAIT: DID A POOR
BRAZILIAN MAN GET PILLORIED FOR MERELY REMOVING A LEASH FROM HIS
SURFBOARD’S NOSE?
Today, in an exclusive from a BeachGrit reader in
Venice, the tableau is filled in just a little more.
His email reads:
Rhonda Harper, Danielle Lyons, and Khadija Sambe show up at
the Venice Pier to meet with a crew from NBC.
Once there, the group of women became “bossy”, “territorial”
, “acting like they run the place”, “telling other surfers they
can’t surf here because they are going to film”. They were snaking
several other surfers repeatedly. (This is coming from several
surfers questioned about that day, all were asked separately about
what happened and all were saying the same things.)
Wagner Lima, noticing the film crew, went up and asked who
they were filming. “The pro surfer out there,” he was told by the
cameraperson. Being told she was a pro surfer and with her own
camera crew, Lima watched to check out her surfing. Not impressed
with her level of surfing, Lima laughed it off as being a “joke”,
which he told the camera person. (This is coming from
Lima.)
Lima then hits the water to surf. Once in, he starts getting
the same treatment the other surfers were getting from the women.
Getting snaked too. After putting up with it for awhile, the wave
with the leash pull happens.
Lima mentions how her leash went around his board, so he
yanked it.
He attempt to say sorry right after, but she wasn’t having
it.
They all go on about there day, Lima leaves the water, gets
smoothie, does some business. He sees the women again in the
parking lot and goes up to them to apologize again. He gets cursed
out and sprayed head-to-toe with water from the women’s rinse
kit.
Soon after is when Harper starts her ruthless online
vendetta against Lima. She shows up at the Venice Pier the next day
and tells Lima she is going to ruin him. (This comes from
Lima.)
Apparently, Harper is infamous in Southern California for
showing up to surf spots with her group and acting like they run
the place. (This also comes from surfers that said they recognized
who she was and know how she acts. There’s even comments on surf
forums about her. Her personal Facebook page is filled with posts
she made showing anger towards men, white people and the surf
industry in general.)
Harper’s vendetta against Lima included contacting a fairly
new website called Seamaven, which had previously wrote up a little
story on Harper. The person behind the website Molly Lockwood ends
up writing a blog post titled “Surf School Owner Spends
Free Time Harassing Black Surfer At Venice
Beach”.
Either Lockwood may have been been feed false info about the
incident from Harper, or she just used race-baiting to push her own
agenda. (This is just going off her story and her replies to anyone
not agreeing with her. She refuses to accept the fact that her
story is filled with inaccuracies. For F’s sake, she stated the
wrong day of the week it happened) and stereotypes.
To sum it all up: these women showed up to a new surf spot,
tried to run the place, started snaking all the other surfers, then
one of them got snaked and Rick Cane’d.
What troubles me about the event, and it should you too, is the
notion of a ‘rinse kit’.
Have you ever heard of such a thing?
When did they enter common parlance and usage?
And, do people actually walk into a store and buy or does it
come in the complete adult learner package?
