I went to a march against police violence today, 1 p.m. at Hollywood and Highland in the heart of our modern Roman shopper celebrity decadence. There were probably about 300 marchers, compared to 25,000 in NYC and at least 10,000 in DC, but this is L.A. We kinda suck at this, right? But this was an excellent group, very cool and strong, very ethnically mixed, sorry to say very underrepresented in my age group, which used to dominate march stats. Ah well. Good news is that very hip and smart young people are engaged in this. The march was amazingly effective for its size. We headed east on Hollywood Boulevard, shutting down eastbound traffic completely for at least half an hour. No one yelled at us, not once; the only honking was for support. We laid down at Hollywood and Vine, filling up the whole intersection and blocking traffic in all directions for 4 1/2 minutes, the time it took Eric Garner to die in a police chokehold (the grand jury declined to indict, joining Ferguson, MO in calculated ignorance). At first it was pretty scary, completely surrounded by beefy, perhaps steroidally enhanced cops, and blocking traffic for what must have been miles, and felt like a lot longer than 4 1/2 minutes. But then it felt zen and melancholy, staring up at the blue sky. We marched to Hollywood and Western, did another 4 1/2 minute lie down, then south and then west on Sunset. The cops were surprisingly deferential, tried to herd us into one lane but we ignored them, and they didnt press the issue. Some well timed honking and yells of support from cars probably helped our cause. Westbound traffic was completely halted, with one more lie down. These marches are about cop behavior, and it really felt like they felt scrutinized and in the spotlight, despite their Robocop demeanor. All was groovy until we headed north on Highland, a block from our starting point. As we approached Selma (ironically/aptly named street), the cops did a lovely Robocop ballet, a precision line at the intersection, blocking our path, arms crossed, batons out. They practice this shit. At a theatrically timed moment, a massive cop appeared with some kind of shotgun with green bullets (stun? teargas?), strutting behind the Robo-phalanx. We stopped, inches from the blue line, quite surprised and not at all knowing what to do. All the cop cars from the afternoon proceedings were magically lined up behind the line. This felt quite provocative. Was it a show of power and intimidation? You had to think in that moment that if there were 10,000 of us this couldnt have happened. But we didnt have the numbers. A few of us tried to engage the line of cops in conversation, but they didnt break character. Some yelled at them. As a cop theatrically jangled an armful of plastic handcuffs, a higher up in a police car cranked his message through the loudspeaker: we had ten minutes to disperse or face arrest and possible injury from projectiles. We backed off, dispersed southward. In case youve never been arrested, it requires physical courage. The protestors you see resisting arrest and being beaten and dragged off have cojones that we take for granted watching on TV. But this will happen again. I highly recommend doing this. Its the right thing to do, its thought provoking every second, and you feel less like a helpless cog in a brutal machine for at least an afternoon. The Occupy movement will hopefully coalesce in a permanent place in each American city once again, to disrupt business as usual, but this wasnt a bad substitute.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 04:39:29 +0000
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