A first person account, by Ken Webster Jr.

HOUSTON, Texas–Yesterday there were protests all over the country organized by SEIU [Service Employees International Union] to bully the powers that be into raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. In Houston the protest took place at a Wendy’s Restaurant. 

Fun fact: the protest organizers had the address of the event listed wrong on their Facebook page.  This might explain why I was the only media person at a protest with easily 50 or 60 people.  Smart.

Anyway, it’s important to note that all though this protest was for the fast food industry, I encountered absolutely zero fast food workers while I was at the protest.  Seriously.  Literally NONE.   

I spoke to dozens of people but most of them were Hispanic immigrants, unemployed people and mentally disabled janitors who weren’t even really sure what they were protesting. [I asked them and they didn’t know.]

I also had a hard time identifying the person who claimed to be in charge [which apparently turned out to be the only white guy at the event – go figure?]

After searching and searching for the protests spokesperson I finally met “Tyler”.  Like I said, Tyler was the only Caucasian at the entire event [besides yours truly] and he was not a big fan of my questions.  

He was wearing a nice suit and holding a clipboard, so clearly he was either in charge of the protest or coaching a peewee football team. 

I also heard him speaking to the police about the legal rights of the protesters when I first arrived, which led me to believe that he was a lawyer for the SEIU, but he denied this accusation.

Tyler is an odd bird.  He claims to not be with SEIU, and he’s not a fast food worker–in fact, he wouldn’t even necessarily claim to be in charge of anything, which is strange, because everyone else at the protest [dozens and dozens of other people] said he was the man who was leading them.  

After talking to Tyler I met a man who claimed to be a Reverend.  Strangely his idea of Christianity is forcing people to give over their money against their own free will, an obvious contradiction of Christian theology.  

One has to wonder, why would a God who’s granted us free will want us to live in a society where we’re forced by another person to hand over our money?  Wouldn’t Jesus want us to decide for ourselves if we choose to give to others?   Isn’t that a major point of Christianity?

The real kicker behind this so called “Reverend” is that he claimed to follow the philosophy of Reverend Martin Luther King, but he denied that King was probably a Republican.   

The Reverend also told me he plans on suing Wendy’s and McDonalds if they don’t raise their wages.  Brilliant.  

Finally we spoke with a young lady with tear drops tattooed on her face who also isn’t a fast food worker.  After we spoke to her for a few seconds the Reverend came over and basically told us to stop talking to people.  A very Christian thing to do, indeed.

Follow Ken Webster on Twitter @ProducerKen.