Chapbook and zine coming. Work in progress. Currently contains a memoir that’s over 20 pages long and needs to be edited. Here is an excerpt from the introduction as it stands:
This memoir is about my time as a protester in 2020. I think the sharing of our stories is holistically and historically important to help radicalize nonprotester’s understanding and help fellow protesters understand each other’s story.
I would love to hear or read another’s protester story as an act of solidarity; for Black and Indigenous people have been protesting the system longer than whites.
While some Jews were protesting alongside the civil rights leaders back in the day. I am half Jewish and Ukrainian. I am privileged and white passing.
I write this to be able to share purposefully to individuals my story and thoughts. I do not think my story is abnormal. I think it is on par with thousands of other protesters.
I ultimately regret my lack of seriousness at many steps in the matter. I write this to convey seriousness to others by bringing a sliver of light to the abuse all protesters endured by pigs in Seattle, WA and beyond.
I am a sadist in some ways and a novelty seeker. I am in EMDR therapy. I have been abusive in the past. The novelty of everything has worn out, but it is what brought me to the movement in the streets in many ways and in staying it has earned my dedication and respect. I hope I earn my fellow protesters respect also.
I am getting more serious and healed everyday. I wish I'd talk more in front of the crowd and been less physical in some ways.
Even if the pigs get a whiff of this, I hope to educate them and protect myself by being open. I desire to hide in plain sight, but I am not so arrogant to know for a fact that my openness makes me a martyr or that pigs won’t target me or people around me given my actions (and they have here within).
Nothing in here is aimed at anyone personally unless you are a true Nazi or white supremacist and lots of protesters know them.
My first march was Black Lives, not black friday the day after Thanksgiving in 2016; a poorly named holiday given settlers would slaughter whole villages and then celebrate with a “Thanksgiving”.
I don’t remember anybody talking about how horrible thanksgiving actually was back then during the march. People cared less about photos or video and nobody wore a mask. We marched into a department store and out. It was peaceful. There were children in the crowd. I ran around and took pictures on my old digital camera. You can see more of my work and active journal on my site at anxt.me
Intellectuals tend to suffer from anxiety. We must not act out of our anxiety or fear though. We must be brave with courage and act in a peacefully militant way to show our power without revenge in the form of force. Retaliation needs not be taken off the table because it deters abuse, but it only takes 3.5% of the population according to some anthropologists (take it with a grain of white salt) to have a revolution, and peaceful ones are always more popular.
This was the year white people woke up in a large way. Dr. Angela Y. Davis was calling the protests over after a few months or less and for us to center Indigenous voices. Some talked about this event and rebellion being another half step towards true freedom. Others talk of another large uprising to come in another year or so when everything slowed down. Only time will tell.
I am not a sympathizer or a moderate. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was asking for no more moderates in 1963 from his 45 days for an injustice ticket in Birmingham Jail. I have become a radical in many ways. I strive for radical peace and justice. I want everybody to get their Maslow’s Hierarchy of basic needs met including warmth, shelter, food, security, and good sleep. We also need to recognize people’s sexual expression and drug use.
I am judicious with my violence towards others and use it as a tool for my own safety and of loved ones around me. I seldom wear black bloc (but understand, in part, its use). I don’t do significant property damage as a sole strategy of revolution; I prefer nondestructive and artistic expression.
I try to act like a peaceful militant with a good sense of his body through training in martial arts and dancing coupled with a strong understanding of civil rights, but truth is I am only a white belt these days; more bold than experienced.
I understand that my actions speak for the larger group, and that I must not lower myself to the level of my oppressor by using unnecessary force to move the arch of justice. I may though ignore their power and act in ways of defiance to bring light to their darkness.
That one must sometimes take on violence to fight violence and lessen the trauma, all-the-while taking on the spiritual death of preemptive action. I seek to have conversations with oppressors and speak truth to power even if it is just a yelling match. I protest this genocidal system and all those that support it.
During the Montgomery to Selma march across multiple days protesters travelled. They were squaring off against counterprotesters with sticks and bottles trying to cross the bridge and cops let them. White supremacist were raping women in the area.
Organizers were going church to church asking for money, but there was little asking for money during the march; they had all the funds. During the civil rights era, Dr. King and organizers were fucking around with prostitutes, probably with some of the donated money and treating them poorly by some accounts. They were just trying to get from point A to B most of the time and wanted to be seen as men. They were marching along an interstate highway and stopping on private property each day. There were bombings and dogs and children in the streets.
During Standing Rock protests, protesters were being fire hosed in below freezing temperatures in an effort to get them to leave or keep the numbers down.
I hope we continue to heal and that protesting becomes core to what it is to be a citizen of this country and city. We definitely have power in numbers, and I know people following online that have yet to step into the streets for the first time.
I am a deeply flawed human being that hurt the movement in some big ways at times, but we were doomed from the beginning because we brought with us to the revolution our trauma and thought we might get another chance to organize. We did not get explicit enough, early enough. We traumatized ourselves. We need to build providence moving forward while the numbers in the street are low. We need to learn from our mistakes. I did not take the protests serious enough from the beginning or understand what my pleasure in novelty meant to my soul.
I acted solo a lot, in a rogue fashion, playing the role of wildcard which I don’t know was the best suited role for me, but one that I enjoy embracing. The relationships I built with protesters, especially elders in the community that have dealt with pig brutality has helped to guide my actions, particularly from September on.
With that said, I took protesting quite serious in that I tried to stay in my lane and not date, flirt, or objectify fellow protesters. This is not a minstrel show.
