mellowtigger (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mellowtigger) wrote2021-04-15 09:59 am
mellowtigger) wrote2021-04-15 09:59 am
Entry tags:
yesterday was strange
I was getting nothing accomplished for work, so I took the day off instead. There are 3,000 military troops in our streets, and I think this insane detail is being missed by national media. Scrolling through the photos and videos in the Twitter feed on this topic, it's obvious that people are as ruffled as I am.
I drove out to the site of the memorial for Daunte Wright (63rd Ave N & Kathrene Dr). It is a nice tribute. It's natural to look at it and wonder, "Why doesn't anything change?" There were still reporters out there. One pair for video and one pair for print media. I spoke to them and to a black man who was there from elsewhere in the USA to represent a Christian missionary effort. We've reached that point where megachurches aren't sending their representatives to war-torn 3rd-world countries. They send them across the USA now.
Then I drove out to the site of the protests, at the Brooklyn Center police department (67th Ave N & N Humboldt Ave). In the middle of the day, it was mostly just reporters who were there. I gawked at the absurd amount of military who were there guarding a building in the USA. It's just ridiculous. Why can't we start over and imagine something new? Why spend so much effort to preserve something that's clearly broken?
I drove home and doomscrolled through social media. The call went out for another protest there at night. I drove back for the 7pm rally. There was also a notice that curfew would begin again at 8pm, so I planned to not be there long. (After the fact, I learned that Brooklyn Center curfew did not begin until 10pm on April 14th.)
There was a good sized crowd, about 500 people maybe? It was different, though. It wasn't like the Occupy style of events that we've seen for Jamar Clark in my neighborhood and George Floyd in south Minneapolis. This had a vibe more like a flash mob with several different protests happening at the same time. Uncoordinated is fine and expected, but the clash of messaging was... jarring. So was seeing the military out there walking the roof of the police building and poking their heads out from the top hatch of armored vehicles.
It was obvious who the main "hosts" were, and they tried to keep the message on Daunte Wright and the injustice of his death. They had several speakers that I agreed with wholeheartedly. There were also distractions, though. Like the intense racism (anti-white in this case) and equally intense sexism (male dominance), both of which some of our black female leaders were vocal about challenging. We don't change a system by just picking new despots to be in charge of the unjust machinery of authority. The sexism was familiar and tired, exactly the same as I have heard from old white men. I was just disappointed to hear it from any of the younger black male leaders that I was hoping would help us change everything.
I left soon after the sexism was challenged. I sat down in my car at 7:58pm, and I was out of Brooklyn Center around the time that I had expected the curfew would begin.
Our Minnesota governor Tim Walz (a Democrat) announced that apparently there is, in fact, an appropriate amount of chemical weapon that can be used against citizens. I'm just appalled at what the USA has become. We told you from the Occupy camps that this militarization needed to end. Clearly, it didn't.
- If you're looking for ways to stay aware, I recommend the Unicorn Riot live feed. When they broadcast, you see and hear unvarnished (but also unvetted) news.
- If you're looking for ways to help the community here, this list (archive copy) is a great resource. I had already donated to several of them, earlier this winter. I'm glad that they're actively involved in this crisis too.
I drove out to the site of the memorial for Daunte Wright (63rd Ave N & Kathrene Dr). It is a nice tribute. It's natural to look at it and wonder, "Why doesn't anything change?" There were still reporters out there. One pair for video and one pair for print media. I spoke to them and to a black man who was there from elsewhere in the USA to represent a Christian missionary effort. We've reached that point where megachurches aren't sending their representatives to war-torn 3rd-world countries. They send them across the USA now.Then I drove out to the site of the protests, at the Brooklyn Center police department (67th Ave N & N Humboldt Ave). In the middle of the day, it was mostly just reporters who were there. I gawked at the absurd amount of military who were there guarding a building in the USA. It's just ridiculous. Why can't we start over and imagine something new? Why spend so much effort to preserve something that's clearly broken?
I drove home and doomscrolled through social media. The call went out for another protest there at night. I drove back for the 7pm rally. There was also a notice that curfew would begin again at 8pm, so I planned to not be there long. (After the fact, I learned that Brooklyn Center curfew did not begin until 10pm on April 14th.)
There was a good sized crowd, about 500 people maybe? It was different, though. It wasn't like the Occupy style of events that we've seen for Jamar Clark in my neighborhood and George Floyd in south Minneapolis. This had a vibe more like a flash mob with several different protests happening at the same time. Uncoordinated is fine and expected, but the clash of messaging was... jarring. So was seeing the military out there walking the roof of the police building and poking their heads out from the top hatch of armored vehicles.
It was obvious who the main "hosts" were, and they tried to keep the message on Daunte Wright and the injustice of his death. They had several speakers that I agreed with wholeheartedly. There were also distractions, though. Like the intense racism (anti-white in this case) and equally intense sexism (male dominance), both of which some of our black female leaders were vocal about challenging. We don't change a system by just picking new despots to be in charge of the unjust machinery of authority. The sexism was familiar and tired, exactly the same as I have heard from old white men. I was just disappointed to hear it from any of the younger black male leaders that I was hoping would help us change everything.
I left soon after the sexism was challenged. I sat down in my car at 7:58pm, and I was out of Brooklyn Center around the time that I had expected the curfew would begin.
Our Minnesota governor Tim Walz (a Democrat) announced that apparently there is, in fact, an appropriate amount of chemical weapon that can be used against citizens. I'm just appalled at what the USA has become. We told you from the Occupy camps that this militarization needed to end. Clearly, it didn't.