May Day

           Activism can be a source of real frustration for me because I come hard up against the limits of what my body can do these days.  Yesterday was May Day, and a coalition of activists decided to take a stand against the billionaires who are greedily monopolizing resources, buying our democracy, and destroying the planet for profit.

Sunrise, an organization of mostly young activists, put out the call but in an effort to prevent the info leaks to the police that have plagued several recent actions, in order to get any details other than the date we had to show up at a meeting the evening before.

I ducked out of work early not knowing what to expect and made my way down to Judson, where people were gathering in the former gym.  It’s a big, unfurnished space and when I got there, young organizers were kneeling on the floor drawing on big pieces of paper and stacks of pizza boxes covered a table.  I grabbed one of the handful of chairs scattered on the far side of the room, which wound up being the section of older activists while everybody else sat on the floor.  Looking at them made me remember being a teen activist.

The meeting was supposed to start at 6pm, and then 6:30pm, and Ken and I started to get a little impatient by the time they finally started at 6:45pm.  The scenario was presented – blockade all of the entrances of the stock exchange by breaking into five teams.

Ben, Micah and I were all on Ryan’s team, the one assigned to jump the low fence and chain on to the stock exchange.  I have done many chaining actions - although usually with a chain around my waist rather than the over the shoulder crisscross they had planned – but there is just no way I can jump even a fairly low fence at this point.  Ben wasn’t up for chaining, so Ryan asked us to block a gate on the outside of the fence, and we figured we might be able to intercept and distract some security or cops to buy them time.

This action, as one young queer organizer pointed out, was an echo of the early ACT UP actions, including the one where they got inside and dropped a “Sell Wellcome” banner from the balcony, targeting the pharmaceutical company that was charging exorbitant prices for the first toxic, not very effective anti-HIV drug.  Later, finding myself beside them, I told them we also did a stock exchange action for ACT UP’s 10^th anniversary.  That action was some of the worst police violence I have personally experienced.  Half a dozen of us filed a federal civil rights violation lawsuit about their conduct and won, but not until after Bill Thorne, whose head they slammed into the pavement while calling him a “diseased faggot” died of AIDS.

We met back up at Judson in the morning, gathered our signs and props and put on our  action t-shirts and then a layer over them.  The chainers practiced chaining, we practiced chants and songs, gave our phones and things to support.  The plan was for us all to take the train downtown.  “Not at all conspicuous,” I said.

Despite the secrecy, I thought the police might know because we all had the tracking devices known as cell phones on us at the meeting, but when we got there, there was no sign of increased security.  Ben bent down so some of the others could use his back to boost them over the fence, and then Ben decided to hop the fence too. That was one of those moments when the anger at my body surges through me, but I had the banner in my hand, so I gave the other end to someone else and we stretched it out in front of the fence.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw them take Ryan down hard, sending him sprawling on his back.  Then a Reuters photographer next to me started yelling across to somebody, asking if he should call someone for them and I realized they had detained a journalist along with our group (she was eventually released).

The police response was bizarre – there was a lot of wandering around and consulting each other, and additional high ranking white shirts kept arriving until six of them were on the scene.  They cuffed the fence-hoppers and then left them standing there in cuffs for a very long time.  In the meantime, they left the other groups sitting on the ground in front of various gates and the rest of the people held a raucous rally complete with a Blackrock pinata stuffed full of fake cash.  A man in a yarmulke passing by started persistently heckling the rally and wound up surrounded by the RMO musicians drowning him out.  Three more young Israeli men – who didn’t know the first – climbed up on the street furniture and joined in the heckling.

Eventually my leg wouldn’t let me stand any longer, so I went and sat on a stone bench with a view of our handcuffed people – after seeing Ryan go down, I wanted to be able to see what happened when they finally came to move them.  Once they took them, I went and sat down with another group, next to a young man in a tallis.  “I didn’t have Israeli bros heckling the rally on my dance card,” he said.  Eventually a tall, white haired white shirt showed up and the police started moving in and grabbed the group at the opposite end.  When they got to us, he said, “we’re not going to arrest you for blocking this gate because they don’t use it” and moved on.  

We notified the lead organizers and they told us to hold position, so we did until they told us to go join another group.  On our way to do that, things started getting chaotic and all of us remaining wound up crammed into a single narrow block.  I suddenly realized I had lost track of our close support who had my fleece - and that my passport was in the fleece.  In an impressive feat of organizing, the lead I told was able to relay the message and somehow the fleece found its way back to me.  While I was waiting, I said to Ken, who had been following all this with his camera, that maybe this was a message from the universe – or my unconscious – saying I shouldn’t get arrested this time.

But then when they handed me the fleece, I went back to my position.  They started arresting people at the far end, and a row of young officers formed in front of us and started pushing us back toward the building behind us. We expected they would grab us next, but then they just seemed to give up and left the rest of us there.

By then I had lost track of everyone I knew, so I walked down to bowling green in the warm sun to claim my property from support.  Then I made my way back up to West 4^th, grabbed a cup of tea to refuel, and went to join Rise and Resist for the big march back down to Foley Square.  By the time we got there, my legs were in full rebellion – it was a challenge to hobble to the R train and head home.  When I got home, I looked at my phone and realized I had walked 10,300 steps, so I couldn’t be too mad at my legs.

Texting Lucy later while resting my legs, it dawned on me and I typed, “did I just do all that to prove I can still do something?”  Her answer was simple, “yes.”