by Dubian Ade
As I enter the confines of Washington Square Park I am met
with busy people hunched over, chalk drawing liberation into the concrete
floor. The massive stone arch towers over them, adjourn with colonial European
faces that seem to shrink at the sight of the people gathering increasingly at
its base. At any second it seemed the masses would rise up in fury to topple
the stone landmark. A woman stationed at the edge hands me a copy of The
Revolution newspaper.
Another black woman yells "Get your buttons!
Black Lives Matter, get your buttons." Another black woman follows
alongside her selling black liberation flags. The sound of drums waters the
space in rhythms synced with the beautiful chaos of the people organizing at
every direction. Filled with sounds, conversation, movement, smells, tastes
swirl behind a backdrop of words ferociously spoken from a microphone.
They are
the families. Sandra Bland, Micheal Brown, Eric Gardner, Tamir Rice, the kind
of testimonies that tear at the insides like swallowed rust nails. "Until
you experience this you will never know my pain!" she rages as a loved one
concerned, hurt written on his face reaches from behind the stage for her
"No, no until they been through what I have experience you will never
know!"
Then Quentin Tarantino gets on the microphone. "I am here because
I am a human being." Nobody cares if you are a human being. Nobody cares
if you came here to pat yourself on the back. Nobody cares about what you have
to say in support of BLM. You are doing no one any favors by being here. Your
white supremacist patriarchy inspired you to get on stage and take up space.
Get off the stage!
The procession begins after the artists. The families lead
the front of the march. With signs and banners we follow behind down Waverly
Place. NYPD intercepts us at 6th avenue. Apparently, one of their own was
killed very recently and there is tension.
But we are murdered every day. Just the other day Corey
Jones was shot and killed by a plain clothes police officer.
We march along the
right lane of 6th avenue while police follow with metal barricades. Screaming
until our lungs gave out we yell: "Sandra Bland, say her name, Maya Hall,
say her name, Rekia Boyd, say her name" intentionally until the rest of us
in line follow and repeat. We are intentional about foregrounding woman of
color.
Many of us pull from tradition: "No justice, no peace"
"What do we want? Justice. When do we want it? Now!" "The
people. United. Will never be defeated."Some of us invent: "Watch my
back I'm under attack, who got my back? I got your back. I got your back, I got
your back. I got your back!" The vibrancy of protest, the life giving
energy of the people overtakes us.
White women stand on the corner of the side
walk clapping at a spectacle. But will never involve themselves in protest.
We
finally reach Bryant Park. The bodies of the officers physically change, their shoulders
tense up, their movements become robotic. NYPD closes in on us pushing the
metal barricades toward the sidewalk. A Black woman is viciously arrested by
three police officers and thrown into the cop car. The sent of danger wafts
three feet away from us. A black man is pushed over the metal barricade.
The
crowd cannot get to these people. We have been isolated from them on the other
side of the barricade. All we can do is heckle and report the names of the
officers. One officer motions to pull her gun out of her holster. "Get on
to the sidewalk or else."
We can easily transform into a mob. But we are
steadily loosing people to the closing rally around the corner. We soon follow
those people as some stay behind to help those targeted by police. At the rally
we hear more stories from the families affected.
Yet the only story that has
been covered about this protest centers Quentin Tarantino. The only controversy
has been Tarantino's view of police.
Fuck the police. And Fuck Quentin
Tarantino.
THE DECOLONIZER
November 2015
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