Here's some footage I got at the BLM march here in Portland last night. The march started on the other side of town, went east down the interstate for a couple miles, then north up town, then down Alberta (the most gentrified street in town - all black business 15 years ago - 1 or 2 left.)
There were easily 5000 people, probably far more. It was shoulder to shoulder across the street, each row 2-3 feet apart, plus folks on the sidewalks, for more than 10 city blocks. I only heard one person make a comment about being 6' apart, and they were pretty well ignored.
The most interesting thing to me was the fact that there were 0 police anywhere. These folks had Alberta (a major road) blocked off from 15th to 33rd, a block in each direction, with cars blocking all the intersections. 3-4 blocks where both sides of the road already had pop-up tents with vendors and such and such at 15th (where it turned - and where the talk was)... didn't see the freeway portion.
I can tell you, from decades in Portland and MANY protests/rallies/marches here, this is literally the first time I've been to an event that didn't have any police presence. For small events, they always outnumber us 2or3 : 1 as a show of force, for larger events they bring out their horse cops (I've almost been stepped on by them), the yellow jackets (40+ bike cops who swarm in and kidnap people from the crowd), and the IScream Truck (a big crowd dispersal weapon in what looks like an ice cream truck), as well as all the standard motorcycle & car cops.
I don't know how they did it, but this really blew me away.
I'm interested in other people's take on the video. I felt resonance with the first 3 presenters, I could feel it in my body, the connection, grounded-ness, and power. WHen the last guy started, that all changed pretty quickly. I've never heard someone saying things like "If you're not with us, you're against us" and seen that go in any kind of positive direction.
Also, when did the chant:
No Justice, No Peace
Fuck the Police
Which was a slightly odd way of saying that until there was justice for the road pirates, there would be no peace... turn into this:
No justice, no peace, no racist police
The message in those words is clearly that the people chanting them want NO justice, NO peace, and NO racist police... This march was the first time I've heard the new version, and it instantly made me a little sick to my stomach.
▶️ 3Speak
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They don't want to just abolish the police, they
want to make their intsectional SJW groups the
police. If SJWs get that power, they'll be more
dangerous than the police themselves are. If
you think there's racism now, you'll see a new
racism with SJWs against whites and males.
SJWs have no sense of constitutional rights or
basic natural rights, their minds are poisoned.
Imagine a world where they get police power.
Google: BLM what we believe. It's shocking how
much they're anti-male, father, n-family, cisgen.
This seems to be a certain demographic but I don't think it's the majority. I think creating a bridge between BLM and the more skeptical (such as yourself) is how to avoid that because there are a lot of solid people with solid ideas who are part of this movement too.
Thanks for your comment. I just wrote a post that speaks to some of the complexities of how we think about groups. I think you might find it interesting. I'm not sure there is a 100% right or wrong way to speak to it, and it may depend on how radically a group behaves. At what point should we condemn the behaviors of a group when we know that not 100% of the people in a said group does those things? And at what point is it the responsibility of those who don't want to be associated with what the group is doing, to leave? I'm sure that many people living in Nazi Germany had to ask themselves similar questions, but they may not have had the luxury of a simple exit from the party. I'm sure many cops are faced with this dilemma too, and those are probably the good cops.
Ya, the religion of intersectionality has gotten deep into the minds of just about all left-leaning (or liberal arts college attending) folks under 40, and quite a few over as well.
I also think that assuming everybody (or even a majority) who show up for a BLM march believe the same thing is pretty naive. You can't even find that at a specific political party, much less a gathering based on such a vague concept.
True. Many folks showing up to BLM marches are doing so to show that black lives matter. However, I'm highly doubtful that most of the people in attendance have read into the organization's aims.
Very true!
At the same time, I find it hard to believe that something like BLM is any more "organized" than Anonymous is. They both seem to be flags waved by folks who want their event/movement to seem larger/more grand than it is if it's just them.
This is something really interesting to consider, kind of eye-opening.
I thought the same thing. It was really nice until he talked, but at the same time a lot of people need to go through their own processes. While I totally support protests, including these, I Personally avoid the chanting and try to engage more in conversations with people from different bubbles from my own. That’s where I feel the real magic happening.
Some of the most peaceful protests are the ones where the police don’t show up. In 2014, (before it became a police state) the cops in hk had some huge backlash for brutality, they disappeared for 3 days and there were no police to be found in the city for 3 days. It was totally peaceful chaos, so beautiful. Fights did erupt but people always deescalated. Not every country, city, or situation can handle this level of freedom and sometimes it’s too heated for such peace to happen but that was such a beautiful and mind expanding experience for me. Even when it's impossible, it should still be something we work towards.
I really hope to connect with native communities next time I'm back in the states. I only knew one single native in my east coast suburban upbringing