Hundreds of thousands fill the streets

I’m home after taking this photo of the dogwood tree in Sue’s back yard, and Sue has borrowed a car and left town for a few days. The protests, marches, vigils, and riots continue. All over the country, hundreds of thousands. As I write this, a little before midnight, there are reportedly 10,000 people in the streets of Portland. Police are deploying flash bang grenades, tear gas, pepper spray, plastic bullets, and rubber bullets. The National Guard has been summoned. I have been listening to helicopters all day long. It sounds like a war out there, and that’s not even considering Covid. Thank you for your thoughtful, loving comments on yesterday’s blip. Today I offer this statement posted on Facebook by a friend who uses on social media the name Madeline Barbara:

“Maybe some outraged and grieving local protesters are escalating their tactics to property damage after being antagonized by the police.

“Maybe some outsider protesters are working in conflict with organizers and hijacking otherwise peaceful actions.

“Maybe there are undercover police officers posing as protesters and escalating things to provide an excuse for a crack-down.

“Maybe other outside groups like white supremacists and “boogaloo” types are taking advantage and accelerating conflict, trying to push us into a second civil war. (I really wish I was being hyperbolic here.)

“Maybe all of these things, to one degree or another.

“Regardless of the complexity, it is imperative that we keep our focus on the systemic racism and violence that has brought us to this breaking point. On the lives lost and destroyed and on the change that needs to happen. It’s huge, transformative, societal change. It’s building-a-future-without-police change. It’s figuratively and literally tearing-down-walls change. It’s messy, difficult, long-term work change.

“Historically, all it takes is some protest-driven property damage or mild inconvenience for a lot of folks in the U.S., especially white people, to turn away from the hugeness of that change and say ‘if only they had protested differently, I would have agreed to help.’ If only they had grieved differently. If only they had revolted differently. A lot of people are already turning away, internally grateful for the excuse. Hoping to ‘get back to normal.’

“Don’t turn away. Our ‘normal’ is state-sanctioned white supremacist terrorism. It’s death penalty without trial. It’s murder with impunity. It’s (still) slavery. And it will not remain ignored. We can willingly work through it together, or we can eventually have that civil war. I wish I was being hyperbolic here, too.

“If you don’t like what people do when they are desperate and outraged—join the work to help end the causes of their pain and frustration. I challenge you to embrace all of the complexity and say, ‘I will help, no matter what.’”