from Barley Lewis-McCabe
What does change feel like, to see nonviolent protestors dressed as giant chickens below hand painted signs made by betrayed voters, or is it something more raw. A national day of protest to draw attention away from the president’s military themed birthday bash. A grassroots push with the aim of bringing as many people to the street as possible. Social veterans and people who’ve never gone to a march, people who get their news where they get their slippers dropshipped, #nokings.
In speeches people alluded to the Civil Rights movement, to the women’s march, to social actions that tried to mold a more fair America post Vietnam. But It’s a new world, new methods but the root causes are the same.
Thousands of people gathered in the heart of Chinatown, kids played on a sun baked play structure in something that more closely resembled a block party. I wandered around with my camera, looked at the signs and made conversation until I stumbled ass backwards into the media pit. Suddenly I bumped into Barbra Lee, mayor of Oakland.
I staggered back and looked around, on all sides I was surrounded by real journalists waving their cameras, trying to get their shot. I joined them of course and listened to her speech calling for us to remember our laws of democracy, and to resist the powers at be.
The speeches finished the march to city hall began. Thousands of people marched through Chinatown following a truck broadcasting chants and songs. In the middle of it all I stopped to lean against a bike rack and talked to a woman with a bubble wand. There were a lot of bubbles, so I kept getting soap on my lens. I can’t imagine what it was like for the people holding the sign at the front.
I asked the woman if she brought them from home, turns out someone’s been handing them out. But that’s not all, past the parade and blocker truck, a one legged man zig zagged a recumbent bike with a bubble machine on the back and parked in front of everyone to blast his suds.
Soon the people were packed like tinned fish in the block around city hall, people with flashy clothes and signs as far as the eye could see. I sat in the middle of the grass with a group of old hippies what does change feel like-what does it smell like? Pot.
People walked in circles waving their signs, or they sat and listened to their congress people decry the administration. This is the world we’ve inherited, not just one of kidnapping and fear-but a country filled with people who want to do something. Who wont just let the world pass them by.
✴︎Bang pow✴︎ 