Love and Rage
Today was the day the anger over Brad's killing came to the surface -- and was channeled into action. To protest Brad's murder and the ongiong repression in Oaxaca, demonstrators shut down the Mexican Consulate in New York for over an hour, thanks to a cleverly executed lockdown.
It was an action of a sort that hasn't much happened since 9/11 effectively destroyed the grassroots anti-globalization movement: employing risky, confrontational, creative nonviolence; relying on blockade techniques pioneered by Earth First! during backwoods actions in the mid 1990s ... and brought into urban activism in the late 1990s by Brad and a handful of others who had been passionately involved in the fight to save the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.
It was also an action of a sort I haven't really attended since giving birth to my twins: a direct action that relies on the element of surprise, in which anyone can potentially be swept up in an arrest, in which the police are unpredictable and aggressive. I swore off such things after getting entirely too close to tear gas and concussion grenades in Miami when I was four months pregnant, during the November 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas protests there. It was absolutely not worth the risk.
But I badly wanted to be at the action today, and I didn't have childcare, so I arrived pushing a double stroller, and spent good parts of the time keeping Nini and Desmond happy with some blueberry cereal bars and small plastic animals.
I was an hour late, and rather shaky, after having participated in a moving and quite upsetting program about Brad on Democracy Now (1|2|3). While I was waiting in the green room, they twice broadcast the harrowing bit of Brad's final footage when you hear him getting hit by the bullet. I burst into tears, barely managing to compose myself before going into the studio. Dyan Neary, one of Brad's old girlfriends and one of the people who knew him best, arrived just as the segment was to begin. They interspersed the live interviews with lots of wonderful footage of Brad, both speaking and singing; I tried not to watch or listen so I wouldn't start crying on air. Dyan held up magnificently and spoke very powerfully, but she was so distraught by the time it was over that she completely collapsed in grief the minute the program went off the air.
Rush home, grab kids, rush to 39th & Madison, arrive just as the arrests begin. My old instincts of where to position myself during an action turned out to be pretty useless when accompanied by toddlers in a massive stroller. I had to do a quick, clumsy retreat when the police started pushing the crowd back; eventually I crossed to the other side of the street and staked out a nice remote corner from which to view the action.
I was most affected by the sight of sweet Tim Doody high up on a lamppost holding a banner with an image of Brad accompanied by the words: "One more night at the barricades," and holding up his fist as the police moved in to arrest him. The text came from Brad's final email missive, and it was exactly the spot where Brad would have been had he been there -- word had it, in fact, that Tim had used Brad's old climbing harness to ascend.
I stayed through the arrests and connected with a whole lot of people I hadn't seen in a very long time, but then it was time to go: The kids had been fabulously patient and good-humored, and it simply wasn't fair to stay.
Not only was it a gorgeous day, it was going to be the last day I got to spend playing with them before we moved away from Manhattan, the last chance to visit our favorite spots in Central Park while it was still our neighborhood haunt. I was determined not to let the morning's grief and anger (or my irritation when my wallet got stolen while running an errand just after the protest) get in the way of our afternoon.
We had a glorious time together. We ran through the maze at Heckscher Playground and wrestled giggling on the ground. Under a bright blue sky, we made our way up to the forested paths of the Ramble, and I introduced them to the crunchy, aromatic joy of rolling in autumn leaves. They had a grand session sitting on the shore of the lake, floating leaves, dipping branches, and plunking acorns. We finished up the day at the Boathouse Cafe, feasting on a burger, fries, and pumpkin pie. It was one of those charmed and marvelous days when my heart is so full of love for Corinne and Desmond that it almost aches.
At the protest, people were talking about how much they felt the spirit of Brad in the defiance and resistance of the morning. But I think I felt his spirit much more strongly in the golden sunlight of the afternoon. A dour sort of activist might think it self-indulgent to be laughing and playing in the park while the Mexican police were moving in on the people of Oaxaca and my compas here were on their way to The Tombs.
But love and joy and beauty were the things Brad was ultimately fighting for. So, yes, one more night at the barricades. But also one more day in the woods.
It was an action of a sort that hasn't much happened since 9/11 effectively destroyed the grassroots anti-globalization movement: employing risky, confrontational, creative nonviolence; relying on blockade techniques pioneered by Earth First! during backwoods actions in the mid 1990s ... and brought into urban activism in the late 1990s by Brad and a handful of others who had been passionately involved in the fight to save the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest.
It was also an action of a sort I haven't really attended since giving birth to my twins: a direct action that relies on the element of surprise, in which anyone can potentially be swept up in an arrest, in which the police are unpredictable and aggressive. I swore off such things after getting entirely too close to tear gas and concussion grenades in Miami when I was four months pregnant, during the November 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas protests there. It was absolutely not worth the risk.
But I badly wanted to be at the action today, and I didn't have childcare, so I arrived pushing a double stroller, and spent good parts of the time keeping Nini and Desmond happy with some blueberry cereal bars and small plastic animals.
I was an hour late, and rather shaky, after having participated in a moving and quite upsetting program about Brad on Democracy Now (1|2|3). While I was waiting in the green room, they twice broadcast the harrowing bit of Brad's final footage when you hear him getting hit by the bullet. I burst into tears, barely managing to compose myself before going into the studio. Dyan Neary, one of Brad's old girlfriends and one of the people who knew him best, arrived just as the segment was to begin. They interspersed the live interviews with lots of wonderful footage of Brad, both speaking and singing; I tried not to watch or listen so I wouldn't start crying on air. Dyan held up magnificently and spoke very powerfully, but she was so distraught by the time it was over that she completely collapsed in grief the minute the program went off the air.
Rush home, grab kids, rush to 39th & Madison, arrive just as the arrests begin. My old instincts of where to position myself during an action turned out to be pretty useless when accompanied by toddlers in a massive stroller. I had to do a quick, clumsy retreat when the police started pushing the crowd back; eventually I crossed to the other side of the street and staked out a nice remote corner from which to view the action.
I was most affected by the sight of sweet Tim Doody high up on a lamppost holding a banner with an image of Brad accompanied by the words: "One more night at the barricades," and holding up his fist as the police moved in to arrest him. The text came from Brad's final email missive, and it was exactly the spot where Brad would have been had he been there -- word had it, in fact, that Tim had used Brad's old climbing harness to ascend.
I stayed through the arrests and connected with a whole lot of people I hadn't seen in a very long time, but then it was time to go: The kids had been fabulously patient and good-humored, and it simply wasn't fair to stay.
Not only was it a gorgeous day, it was going to be the last day I got to spend playing with them before we moved away from Manhattan, the last chance to visit our favorite spots in Central Park while it was still our neighborhood haunt. I was determined not to let the morning's grief and anger (or my irritation when my wallet got stolen while running an errand just after the protest) get in the way of our afternoon.
We had a glorious time together. We ran through the maze at Heckscher Playground and wrestled giggling on the ground. Under a bright blue sky, we made our way up to the forested paths of the Ramble, and I introduced them to the crunchy, aromatic joy of rolling in autumn leaves. They had a grand session sitting on the shore of the lake, floating leaves, dipping branches, and plunking acorns. We finished up the day at the Boathouse Cafe, feasting on a burger, fries, and pumpkin pie. It was one of those charmed and marvelous days when my heart is so full of love for Corinne and Desmond that it almost aches.
At the protest, people were talking about how much they felt the spirit of Brad in the defiance and resistance of the morning. But I think I felt his spirit much more strongly in the golden sunlight of the afternoon. A dour sort of activist might think it self-indulgent to be laughing and playing in the park while the Mexican police were moving in on the people of Oaxaca and my compas here were on their way to The Tombs.
But love and joy and beauty were the things Brad was ultimately fighting for. So, yes, one more night at the barricades. But also one more day in the woods.
- Juan Gonzalez published a quite nice piece about Brad in the Daily News.
- Kate Crane has posted the text of a heartbreaking interview with the man in whose arms Brad died.
posted by Leslie Kauffman at 12:07 AM
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