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Last night the police came up with new tactics. Instead of letting us march to the PPA or North Precinct they stopped us just a few blocks after we started marching. They then gassed (not sure what gas), and charged crowd protesters. Blocking advance to the PPA.
The protest then marched to near PCC in the direction of the North Precinct. That was also blocked. We then were driven north back to the PPA, then East, then South, etc... The regrouping and dispersals continued for 4 hours.
Here’s what we know right now. This is a new tactic by the police, it was a hard night. Like many people, I got separated from the crowd many times. It felt like small groups of protesters were wandering around North Portland all over the place.
Some things are not new, the police have very limited numbers, there are no more than 100 officers out on protest duty. It’s a few van’s with mobile riot cops hanging off the sides and a dozen support vehicles. Last night they only used one of their two LRADs.
These protests are about black lives and systemic racism. What we’re doing is exposing the unjust violence that exists within the institution of policing. We’re making visible the abuse, discrimination, and hate.
By doing that we expose the contradiction between the society’s stated values and the lived reality. If we set aside the question about if property damage is violence, this is exactly the same tactics social movements have used for generations, it’s the tactics of MLK & Gandhi.
We win articulating a hopeful vision of society which people can broadly believe in. Then we demonstrate that the current system does not reflect the values to which we aspire. Burning down a police station or the PPA office is a symbolic act.
The real economic costs of rebuilding is minimal. The potential prison time for anyone arrested is substantial & very real. It’s symbolism which gets widespread attention, and often support, most Americans supported burning down the Minneapolis station after George Floyd’s death.
Getting back to the tactics of last night. We've been meeting in a park, providing food, gear, hanging out with friends, connecting, listening to music, then marching together to a building that symbolizes police power. We then stand, protest, chant, berate the cops for a while.
Sometimes they just attack the crowd, sometimes they wait until some imaginary line has been crossed. Often that involves graffiti, a dumpster fire, somebody lighting the plywood boarding up windows of the building on fire, etc…
This baits the police into attacking the crowd. We have lots of protester, independent, and corporate journalists covering the protests and they capture the dramatic images.
A protest without dramatic images does not get coverage, and denying coverage is like suppressing the existence of the protest all together. The bloody Sunday march in Selma is famous BECAUSE it was bloody.
If the cops had simply erected an effective barrier and nobody was beaten, it wouldn’t be remembered at all.
So, on one hand, it doesn’t matter if we make it to the PPA or Precinct, as long as the conflict & police brutality happens in a place with good street lights & cameras.
So, on one hand, it doesn’t matter if we make it to the PPA or Precinct, as long as the conflict & police brutality happens in a place with good street lights & cameras.
On the other hand, we can easily get to those places if we shift our tactics and flow like water as the Hong Kong movement advocates. They did it to avoid arrest and serious prison time. We should do it for very different reasons.
The PPB can only block 2 or maybe 3 streets at a time. They are only arresting people they trample over at charges or specific targeted snatch and grabbing of protesters they think they can get charges to stick on.
This means we can walk freely in groups of up to a dozen, or more on sidewalks. It feels good to march in a big group behind a line of shields with music driving us forward. But we can go anywhere in the city, bloc’d up, as long as we’re in small groups.
We’ve got a lot of cars in our movement, most affinity groups have them. We also have floating drivers and vans who can move people around. When we get blocked by the cops like we did at Ainsworth & International we can break up in small groups and regroup at the original target.
This happened the last time we were at the PPA on the 10th. Videos like this one are powerful. Demetria’s arrest sucked, the way they were kept in that van was abusive, but the coverage of it and press conference the next day was really important. https://twitter.com/ProtestSound/status/1292718400842526723
Demetria's arrest, jail support, national support from BLM leaders, coverage of it all, videos of disproportionate police violence, all combined. It reset the narrative that Ted Wheeler had been pushing about how this wasn't about black lives any more.
Last night we had the group split up in two plus tons of smaller splinters. If each group had focused on getting to either the North Precinct or the PPA instead of regrouping in the neighborhood we would have replicate the ‘success’ of the 10th.
It doesn’t seem like they’re going to let us march in big groups towards their buildings. Big marches are powerful, provoking and documenting police violence is powerful. Pissing off the cops by showing up at their buildings and having them take the bait is powerful.
We need to march down half a dozen parallel streets. One or two groups might get blocked, but they’ll flow back around.
What we need to do stop doing is letting them push us miles on one direction without taking side streets or driving the tactics ourselves.
What we need to do stop doing is letting them push us miles on one direction without taking side streets or driving the tactics ourselves.
What we need to do stop doing is letting them push us miles on one direction without taking side streets or driving the tactics ourselves.
We aren't regimented and unified like the police, instead we're a diverse creative multitude and that's how we can win.
We aren't regimented and unified like the police, instead we're a diverse creative multitude and that's how we can win.
Social movements like are don’t win by directly overpowering the state. We win by exposing the contradictions in the system between its official narrative and actual practice.
We win by breaking down the bonds between local government officials, the police, the business community, and their wealthy backers. Make the 'good person' feel the moral corruption of supporting people like Officer 12, Brett Taylor, and be responsible for all of his abuse.
