A Brief Experience On Protesting
Dec. 5th, 2014 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jhameiaI went to the UCR protest today for Mike Brown and Ferguson. AW and I headed to the Bell Tower to look for the people. We started congregating around a table with megaphones and signs. As more people drifted towards us, I noticed the Vice-Provost off to the side talking to some woman. I met with some other grads, we hung out in a small cluster.
Among the people who came were one of the student assistants for my dept and a student of mine. (This student who just the other day expressed amazement that I seem to remember her since she was a student in a class I TA'd last winter. Why do students always seem so surprised to be remembered? Are they so easily forgotten? Is this what we are teaching kids these days?)
I kept looking over to the Vice-Provost and eventually walked over to him, to say hello, to ask, if he had come to witness. He said, "I'm not here in any official capacity, and I'm here to observe." He asked me to introduce myself again, because we've met before, at the meet-and-greet welcoming him. He introduced the woman next to him, someone here to observe him, from some other university's college of education or something. He said, "it's really important that this conversation happen and I'm really glad that this is happening."
I wanted to ask him if he would come die with us, but felt I already had an answer. Maybe I should have said something further, maybe I should have said that it would have mattered to these students to have seen someone from their administration, even if half of them didn't recognize him, say something in support of their actions. Maybe I should have told him that there were plans on speaking afterwards and he could at least observe that too. That would have mattered.
But chanting had started so I excused myself, I had a protest to attend, and he said, "yes, go, do it."
The plan was to chant down to the HUB Courtyard and then to have the die-in, while the leads read the names. Afterward, people would take the megaphone and speak. When one of the leads, who was white and one of the first to get there which made me uncomfortable, started to read the names. I don't know who was the first one to get down, but I felt I was one of the first anyway. I didn't see what happened after that because I was mostly squinting at the sky.
A die-in is an.... interesting experience (understatement). It's an opening to vulnerability, for four minutes. I *have* lain down in public before; I did it all the time when I used to take naps on the grass, I do it all the time at airports. But doing it at a protest is especially more vulnerable-making because there is a particular purpose that opens one to violence. I can see (can feel) why the BPP used to train its members in intimidation tactics, as in how to bear them, how to not be intimidated by them, how to keep your cool under pressure and in the face of violence. It takes a certain kind of mental shield.
After the four and a half minutes, we all rose to the chant of "Rise up! Rise up!"
Then people took to the megaphones to speechify. I don't think anyone said anything I hadn't heard before, but it was clear that so many people there had waited a long time to say something, had a lot of things on their chest to say, needed to say, in their own words, what was inside. It was very emotionally fraught, and people stood on tables to speak. There were Chicano and Arab-American students speaking up in solidarity, from their positions under oppression in different ways.
(I didn't speak; I get to speak in front of students on these issues everytime I have a discussion section, in a place of authority. But there was someone at the back who had her hand up and couldn't get the organizer's notice, so I nudged the organizer to bring the microphone to her next, since she was on a table with a large sign.)
There were some things that didn't need to be said, I thought, like an exhortation from white people to other white people to not take up space. If you're going to make that your core message, you shouldn't speechify.
I had to leave because I had to find someone else, and it was starting to get overwhelming.
It was mostly a start, I think. There could have been more bodies. (There had been more bodies the other night.) But I hope there will be more conversations, at least. We'll see. Maybe when the new quarter starts.
Among the people who came were one of the student assistants for my dept and a student of mine. (This student who just the other day expressed amazement that I seem to remember her since she was a student in a class I TA'd last winter. Why do students always seem so surprised to be remembered? Are they so easily forgotten? Is this what we are teaching kids these days?)
I kept looking over to the Vice-Provost and eventually walked over to him, to say hello, to ask, if he had come to witness. He said, "I'm not here in any official capacity, and I'm here to observe." He asked me to introduce myself again, because we've met before, at the meet-and-greet welcoming him. He introduced the woman next to him, someone here to observe him, from some other university's college of education or something. He said, "it's really important that this conversation happen and I'm really glad that this is happening."
I wanted to ask him if he would come die with us, but felt I already had an answer. Maybe I should have said something further, maybe I should have said that it would have mattered to these students to have seen someone from their administration, even if half of them didn't recognize him, say something in support of their actions. Maybe I should have told him that there were plans on speaking afterwards and he could at least observe that too. That would have mattered.
But chanting had started so I excused myself, I had a protest to attend, and he said, "yes, go, do it."
The plan was to chant down to the HUB Courtyard and then to have the die-in, while the leads read the names. Afterward, people would take the megaphone and speak. When one of the leads, who was white and one of the first to get there which made me uncomfortable, started to read the names. I don't know who was the first one to get down, but I felt I was one of the first anyway. I didn't see what happened after that because I was mostly squinting at the sky.
A die-in is an.... interesting experience (understatement). It's an opening to vulnerability, for four minutes. I *have* lain down in public before; I did it all the time when I used to take naps on the grass, I do it all the time at airports. But doing it at a protest is especially more vulnerable-making because there is a particular purpose that opens one to violence. I can see (can feel) why the BPP used to train its members in intimidation tactics, as in how to bear them, how to not be intimidated by them, how to keep your cool under pressure and in the face of violence. It takes a certain kind of mental shield.
After the four and a half minutes, we all rose to the chant of "Rise up! Rise up!"
Then people took to the megaphones to speechify. I don't think anyone said anything I hadn't heard before, but it was clear that so many people there had waited a long time to say something, had a lot of things on their chest to say, needed to say, in their own words, what was inside. It was very emotionally fraught, and people stood on tables to speak. There were Chicano and Arab-American students speaking up in solidarity, from their positions under oppression in different ways.
(I didn't speak; I get to speak in front of students on these issues everytime I have a discussion section, in a place of authority. But there was someone at the back who had her hand up and couldn't get the organizer's notice, so I nudged the organizer to bring the microphone to her next, since she was on a table with a large sign.)
There were some things that didn't need to be said, I thought, like an exhortation from white people to other white people to not take up space. If you're going to make that your core message, you shouldn't speechify.
I had to leave because I had to find someone else, and it was starting to get overwhelming.
It was mostly a start, I think. There could have been more bodies. (There had been more bodies the other night.) But I hope there will be more conversations, at least. We'll see. Maybe when the new quarter starts.