Peaceful Protests

First published on The Big Smoke.
September 9, 2020

The white mayor, various other mostly white regional elected officials, the white editorial board of the “local” (actually owned by national media chain) newspaper, and numerous mostly white-owned businesses have called (repeatedly) for an end to the violence on the streets of Portland, Oregon.

They use passive language–“the violence needs to end”, “All of us must take a stance against violence”, “violence has no place in civic engagement and protest”, etc.–while barely giving lip service to Black Lives Matter (ignoring centuries of abuse and police violence and claiming to know what behavior is appropriate for Black people trying to stop the police from killing them) or the First Amendment right “to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

But, nowhere, in any of their documents, editorials, statements, or letters, do any of them acknowledge that, night after night, the primary perpetrators of violence–the people breaking bones, and cracking open peoples’ heads that results in concussions and traumatic brain injuries, and causing other injuries that have put people in the hospital–wear the uniforms and badges of the Portland Police Bureau.

White supremacist groups have come to Portland on several occasions, shooting paint ball guns and mace, threatening people with loaded pistols, and beating people with baseball bats. The police don’t arrest the Fascist group members for felonious assaults committed and recorded on video. Yet night after night, police arrest Black Lives Matter protesters for disturbing the peace, disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and the ever-popular interfering with a police officer (a nebulous, undefined law that has been interpreted by police as anything from insulting a police officer, which is not actually a crime, to not running away fast enough).

Night after night, any violence that isn’t committed by right-wing “patriots” is inflicted by the Portland Police.

After 59 people were arrested Saturday night/Sunday morning, and after being prevented by the police from reaching their protest goal the evening before, on Tuesday, September 8th, protesters implemented a new tactic. Whenever the police tried to block them, they went somewhere else. They flowed through the streets of downtown Portland, shifting direction and destination.

Police told protesters to stay off the train tracks, while they themselves stood on the train tracks. They told protesters not to block the street, while they themselves blocked the street. Police threatened protesters, via Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), with “arrest, citation, or crowd control agents, including, but not limited to, tear gas and/or impact weapons.”

But there is no evidence any protesters threw water bottles, plastic pigs, or fruit at police. No one affiliated with the protest set dumpster fires, which have become a protest mascot and have been used as barriers to stop drivers from attempting to run down pedestrians with their vehicles. Presumably aware of the high fire danger, no one even started a small trash fire. No new graffiti was added to government buildings.

Protesters listened to speeches and rap songs excoriating the police and the mayor, chanted, and danced in front of City Hall. Even Mayor Edward Tevis “Tear Gas Ted” Wheeler, who is also the police commissioner, couldn’t have called it anything but a peaceful protest. The police couldn’t justify an “unlawful assembly” or “riot” declaration for which, in the past, they’ve only needed a minuscule excuse, such as a balloon being tossed in their direction.

So, instead, police declared the streets the protesters occupied, and an additional dozen blocks of downtown Portland, closed to pedestrians. And then, as protesters cleared the area, expanded the closure to more than forty blocks.

Police chased and attacked protesters, throwing them violently to the ground; pushed them off the sidewalk they had ordered them to stay on; arrested whoever they could catch including one woman who was legally crossing the street in a crosswalk, with the light, outside the “closed” zone; including one of the Moms for Black Lives who, standing on the sidewalk as instructed, yelled at them for attacking peaceful protesters but refusing to arrest violent white supremacists; and including at least one member of the press despite a restraining order forbidding them from doing so.

For each arrest, four or five police officers tackled and restrained individuals, some weighing less than 100 pounds, who were not resisting in any way and several additional police officers attempted to prevent the press from photographing the violence while repeatedly announcing via LRAD that the arrests were “lawful”. (One normally need not repeatedly state something is “lawful” if it actually is.) Restraining and arresting a person did not stop police from inflicting further damage, including holding one man down and pulling his head up by his hair to spray mace in his face.

The nightly police-written summary, released at 2:51 a.m. Pacific time, that details arrests and invents reasons for them, as usual, contained misleading statements and outright lies.

“A mass gathering blocked streets and Trimet Max tracks in downtown Portland for several hours Tuesday evening.” That statement is only accurate if you identify the “mass gathering” as the Portland Police, because even when protesters moved away from areas as instructed, the police continued to block the streets and the train tracks. It should be noted that on numerous occasions when protesters take to the streets in Portland, they make an effort to allow Max trains, buses, and delivery trucks to pass through unimpeded.

“Targeted arrests were made” is only accurate if you consider “targeted” as anyone they could catch.

“As the group marched in the streets, group members were seen wearing helmets, gas masks, and carrying shields.” So now, apparently, the police interpret efforts made by protesters to protect themselves against further police brutality as intention to commit a criminal act.

As Mac Smiff, Portland activist and Editor-in-Chief of We Out Here, has stated: “We came out here dressed in T-shirts and twirling Hula-Hoops and stuff, and they started gassing us, so we came back with respirators, and they started shooting us, so we came back with vests, and they started aiming for the head, so we started wearing helmets, and now they call us terrorists.”

Eleven arrests were made on charges of interfering with a peace officer, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest (under Oregon law people have the right to defend themselves against unreasonable use of force). One person had an additional charge of attempt escape tacked on.

None of those arrested were charged with vandalism (despite claims in the summary that vandalizing property had occurred), assault, or even littering (despite claims in the summary that projectiles had been thrown). The county District Attorney, Mike Schmidt, has specifically said his office will not press charges for interference with a police officer or disorderly conduct and Oregon courts have ruled that resisting arrest is not a valid charge in and of itself.

The Portland Police have made it very clear that they will not tolerate any form of protest, peaceful or otherwise, that calls out their racism, their violence, and their brutality, nor any calls for eliminating their funding. So, exactly what do officials and media mean when they declare “we ask those who may want to demonstrate to do so peacefully and safely” or “This is not the culture of peaceful protest that Portland knows”?

You Can’t Shame Hypocrites

The memes are entertaining. The stories about how/why wearing masks can save lives, inspiring. The hypocrisy call outs, always appropriate. The legal, medical, and scientific citations useful to those who actually consider facts to be important.

But, MAGAts, Republicans, xtianists, conspiracy theorists, and anti-vaxxers will never recognize or acknowledge their own hypocrisy. They literally have no interest in the truth. They actually believe that science is an opinion and the information they found by searching the Internet, heard on Faux News, or read in their Facebook groups is more accurate than what medical doctors, scientists, and historians publish.

Remember, it’s all projection. Whatever they call us, they are. And in this case, they’re snowflake sheeple going whichever direction the rings in their noses are pulled by their leaders and preachers; Faux News commentators; ignorant, nut job, racist, white supremacist celebrities; and random deranged conspiracy theorists who somehow (but not always) managed to get a medical degree.

Don’t waste your breath/time on them. These people have no shame. They used to. Until a narcissistic, misogynist, racist, white supremacist was installed in the White House enabling every over-entitled white person to show the world just how nasty they can be by claiming they are being discriminated against, that their civil liberties (on private property) are being infringed, that all BIPOC people they are attacking (since many of the under-paid employees forced to ask these entitled twats to put on a mask are BIPOC) are playing the “race card” when they point out their racism.

After all, if getting thrown out of stores, having their rants go viral, and being dubbed KKKaren and KKKyle isn’t enough to shame them, nothing will. They don’t care about anyone but themselves and what they’re told to believe so they can “own the libs”. Check out #KarensGoneWild on Twitter if you haven’t already seen samples. Many of these people have lost their jobs. They’ve had their temper tantrums seen by millions of people. And yet they keep waving their ignorance and ugliness around on (as they said in the old days) national television.

In Florida anti-mask marchers unironically chant “my body my choice” (and I’ll guaranteed 99 percent of them support the forced-pregnancy movement). Texans title a meeting to protest against mask-wearing”I can’t breathe”. And, also in Texas, signs at an anti-mask event claim “Bar Lives Matter”. Exactly how could you shame hypocrites like that? Especially, when police refuse to wear masks themselves. In Corvallis, OR, for just one example, Oregon State Troopers walk into a coffee shop, refuse to put on masks, and intimidate the clerk into making their beverages while cursing their boss (the governor). What does that tell all the other mask-deniers? You can get away with it.

They are all convinced they are poor, trampled upon, oppressed victims suffering from discrimination. Sometimes, they break down and cry on video when they face personal consequences such as getting fired. But they do not change their behavior because they will find plenty of online and in-person support (including financial) for their notion of how oppressed they are and because they aren’t equipped to function in a society in which their mediocrity is no longer rewarded just because they’re white.

Some of them will even find lawyers to take their money so they can sue their former employers for discriminating against their political or religious beliefs. Given how the courts have been shoved to the right (200 lifetime appointments of mostly unqualified, right wing judges so far) some of them may even eventually win. Which will then make employers hesitant to fire misogynists, racists, and white supremacists, in the future to avoid facing the legal costs of fighting them in court.

The anti-maskers band together and media supports them because they’re “patriots” fighting for their “freedom” (as opposed to the “thugs” protesting police murders of “criminals”) with carefully constructed camera angles to make their “rallies” (unlike the “riots” of peaceful protestors chanting Black Lives Matter) look bigger than they actually are.

The cops (who refuse to wear masks themselves) support anti-maskers by only arresting them (if at all) under the most egregious circumstances (and often arresting their victims when they attack BIPOC), by protecting armed white racists against unarmed anti-fascist counter protesters, by declaring a riot (without cause) against those protesting police brutality so they can exhibit exactly why those people are protesting.

Most of those who rally for their “rights” to be “free” of the horrible oppression of wearing masks don’t wear one and those who are demanding police stop killing BIPOC do (which is why there have yet to be a significant number of COVID cases traced to protests but thousands traced to parties, bar outings, “patriot” rallies, beaches, etc.)

As I believe the statement goes: “Hell hath no fury like an entitled white person who is inconvenienced.” You cannot shame people who are so self-entitled they have no shame. They just double down. They will knock people’s cell phones out of their hands. They will freak out, cry, and publish lame “apologies” on social media. But they will not change. They cannot distinguish truth from lies, scientific fact from FauxNews propaganda designed to kill people to bolster the stock market.

Nothing you can do will convince them they’re wrong until they’re gasping for breath in the hospital and by then they’ve infected 50 other people.

In my opinion, doxxing KKKarens and getting them fired or costing them business is much more effective than attempting to “shame” them. (Although a lot of them are retired and ardently supporting the administration that wants to eliminate the Social Security payments and Medicare insurance they depend on.)

Private businesses enforcing bans against allowing mask wearers on their premises would help, but it’s not happening, because the lowest-paid, most vulnerable, and often BIPOC employees are the ones tasked with enforcement. And they are not given tools to counter fake exemptions, belligerent entitled racists, and people intimidating them by claiming they’re with a non-existent agency and threatening them with personal liability.

See, for example, this woman who rants about not wearing a mask but still leaves with the food the company sold her. Even when non-employees step up and attempt to shame someone, like this woman at a Costco — which has a company policy that requires masks — to put on the mask given her by the store, they get no help from management and are told “you’re ridiculous to shame people”.

It also would help a lot if the media didn’t both sides the issue by giving these people screen time/space allowing them to go on about how they were afraid or entitled to a cut of the fundraiser that others created to “tip” the victim of a KKKaren who refused to wear a mask.

It would be inconvenient and unpleasant, but if those who believed in science, who cared enough about their fellow human beings to social distance and wear masks, all stayed home for a month (including health care workers, grocery clerks, delivery drivers and other “essential” low-paid workers), Darwin would solve the problem for us.

But, since too many of us can’t survive a month with no supplies and no income, wear a mask. Wash your hands. Stay 26 (yes, 26 feet because if they actually spit, which they’ve been known to do, it can travel further than six, and it’s finally being acknowledged that’s how far a sneeze can travel without a mask) feet away from the idiots described above.

Lethal Chokeholds Still Used. Repeatedly

One more reason (of thousands) why police reform (which has been tried and failed) isn’t an option. Why we must #DefundThePolice and put that money into social services.

We don’t teach it. We don’t authorize it in terms of a technique” and yet chokeholds are still used. Repeatedly. Lethally.

John Catanzara, president of Chicago Police Department’s largest union said “I’m not going to give up my life because of some stupid department policy that under no circumstances are you allowed to choke anybody. It’s just a dumb process to even think about. … He said the same principle would apply to carotid artery restraints. ‘I’m going to do it every single time.'”

There is no evidence at all that George Floyd’s murderer was threatened by Floyd. The only threat the murderer saw was the color of Floyd ‘s skin. Four police were involved in murdering a man who was already in restraints.

None of the police who murdered Eric Garner were at risk of losing their lives. Every time a chokehold has been used, there has been no actual justification. The only struggle has been someone instinctively trying to survive the use of excessive, unwarranted, lethal force.

“Chicago has restricted use of chokeholds as far back as the 1980s. But the department’s troubled history with controversial restraints continues to this day.” A Chicago police officer pulled Mia Wright from a car by her hair and placed a knee on her neck last month. For no legitimate reason.

And, this is just one police force. They all have the same problem. They always try to blame their victims. Policing attracts bullies, racists, sexual predators, abusers, and murderers. The very concept of policing (which I again remind you started with slave patrols, the “well-regulated Militia” mentioned in the Second Amendment) is incompatible with a free, equitable society.

Read the in-depth article about chokeholds in Chicago but substitute your city name because you will find similar cases where you live.

Training is not the answer.

Reform is not the answer.

We need to abolish the police and start over with other public safety options that will address, rather than enforce, systemic racism.