No, There's Not A Riot Going On..but Sly Stone is dead...
Words on Los Angeles, ICE Protests, San Francisco, tyranny, and the late Sly Stone
Monday evening, I was at work when I heard the chanting. I couldn’t make out the words but I knew that they must have something to do with Trump’s assault on Los Angeles. I poked my head out the front door and saw a hell of a lot of people marching down Valencia Street, in San Francisco’s Mission District. Though there were plenty of older folks and white people marching, the bulk of the protesters were young, Black, and Brown, not typical of the larger anti-Trump protests we’ve had in the city.
The crowd make up made sense. Younger people are drawn towards action and are much more willing to ditch the lame Democratic Party strategy of waiting Trump out while judges tell him “No” (and then grumble when he ignores the courts). The ethnic mix of the crowd is reflective of the people subject to Trump’s ethnic cleansing campaign. The protesters don’t see nationality or immigration status as the issue motivating Trump. They know, through the people he is targeting, the immigrants he is favoring (white South Africans), and his long history of racism, that once Trump is done with rounding up “illegals,” he will turn his terror to non-white “birth right” citizens, naturalized citizens, and “radical left Democrats” of color.
The San Francisco marchers took up the width of Valencia Street and stretched back about eight blocks. Multiple reports estimate that there were about five thousand people on the street, walking, skateboarding, chanting, singing, and having a good time of it in their righteous anger.
Initially, police presence was minimal, at least on Valencia (SFPD generally amasses “troops” on side streets). I saw no cops in the crowd (though I’m certain there were some undercovers) and there was no helicopter hoovering overhead. Usually, the police block the side streets, most often to keep automobiles from interacting with protesters; however, yesterday, the cops let march organizers deal with traffic control. It wasn’t until after the march’s stragglers passed by that I saw the police - three patrol cards and two vans.
The relatively light police presence – at least at the march – is fairly typical of San Francisco, but that doesn’t mean that the police weren’t aggressive. They were, at the end of the march, when protesters gathered at Mission and Van Ness, and the cops responded by kettling the protesters, corralling them into a group so that they can be easily arrested. Kettling is a controversial method of crowd control because, even when orders to disperse are heard (not always the case), because the protesters are surrounded by police, they have no opportunity to leave as ordered without direct confrontation with same police, which can turn violent, often thanks to the cops.
The city’s justification for kettling and direct confrontation by police is that it prevents protester “violence,” i.e. vandalism and property damage, “violence” that is also used as a pretext to the crackdown. Having been kettled at protests, in those moments, I’ve never seen violence from protesters except in self-defense, to try to ward off aggressive and violent cops. More often, I’ve experienced a few whacks from a police baton while escaping through a corridor of SF’s finest.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, LA Mayor Karen Bass, and SF Mayor Daniel Lurie are willing to be vocal in opposition to Trump’s ICE black-booting (Lurie less so than the others) while they harp on “protester violence” (also saying everything is in their control). However, they are mum when it comes to police violence against protesters. I don’t expect state and city leaders to endorse spray painting walls or the breaking of a few windows, but the silence around police violence, especially incidents like LAPD using horses to trample protesters, only helps Trump. Green-lighting police violence, even by keeping quiet, tells looky-loos that the police must act this way because things are out of control (why would cops “need” to beat down a protester if everything was hunky dory?). All eyes focus on police/protester interactions and not at ICE’s illegal round-ups and violence, the origin of the unrest.
(Note that Los Angeles is a very large city, covering 502 square miles. The ICE protests are happening in a very small area of Downtown LA, mostly around the Federal Building and a few other sites downtown. That the “whole city is on fire” and chaos reigns are more Trump lies. Comparisons to the Rodney King Riots are absurd. In the ICE protests, the police are the main force attacking people. Some buildings have been vandalized and some cars torched, but city blocks are not ablaze.)
We are at an inflection point. Donald Trump and his hacks are trying to federalize law enforcement by using the military as a police force, something prohibited by the Constitution. He is looking to work around the law by creating a spectacle of violence which will justify – in his mind – use of the Insurrection Act, which would put Los Angeles, California, and any other city he claims is “out of control,” i.e. not kissing Trump’s ring, under marital law. I don’t think it is unreasonable to suggest that if martial law comes to California, the country is next.
Since the protests started, there’s been some grumbling by professional progressives and mainstream pundits that the protesters are playing into Trump’s strategy by being violent. Not only are these people – who claim to support the “cause” – off on their appraisal of protester violence – it’s minimal, directed at inanimate objects, and often in self-defense – it is they who playing Trump’s hands by highlighting rare acts of random violence by protesters while ignoring violence by federal forces and the police. Because no one on the streets is going to listen to keyboard warriors lecturing them from the safety of their offices and homes, these nags only kvetch to serve Trump, by backing his claims of mass violence and creating a divide between protesters and the public. The sad thing about what these critics are doing is that it is old hat. They are falling for a tactic that’s been used for decades by the powerful to smash dissent.
If these hall monitors truly want to help, they’d highlight violence coming from above, by Trump’s troops and segments of cops. They’d focus on the vast majority of protesters who are peaceful – loud, crass, and a bit scary to suburbia, but very much under control. They’d dive into the issues that are being fought over, essentially what has turned into a Trump/Miller-led ethnic cleansing campaign, the further destruction of rule of law, and the usurping of authority of state and local elected official. They would talk less about Waymo drone vehicles being set ablaze and more about the United States being on the edge of dictatorship. And then they’d join the protesters on the street, which they can do as the ICE protests are spreading fast.
If Trump is to be stopped, it is essential that good thinking people get behind this protest movement and look at it through realistic eyes. Discourage violence while knowing that there will always be a few instigators and that most of protester violence is in self-defense, prompted by attacks by authorities. Know that more people joining the protests translates to less violence and more security for all. There is safety as well as strength in numbers. Acknowledge that we are aligned against a very violent, lawless, authoritarian regime and that regime will retaliate, while knowing that these guys are bullies who can be forced to back down.
In 2020, during the George Floyd protests, things got a bit hot in Portland. Anti-police protests were very well attended and loud. Protest organizers and attendees knew that there was a risk of violence breaking out because they’d spent the last three years confronting white supremacists and fascists on the street. They also knew that the violence would be started by either the police or right-wing provocateurs. So, they were prepared when the cops started swinging and refused to cede ground.
The images of the Portland Standoff (anti-cop graffiti and some garbage cans on fire) gave Trump an excuse to send in federal police, mostly from the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The feds not only backed Portland PD attacks on protesters, they cruised around protest sites in unmarked vans, snatching people off the street, some non-protesters, who would be taken off site for interrogation.
Trump’s intimidation tactics backfired. Instead of crushing dissent, the protests grew. Significantly, middle class moms and dads hit the front lines, willing to risk getting smacked around a pepper sprayed in order to defend our rights. Night after night the protests got bigger until Trump taco’d, as he does when his bully tactics fail.
While Trump is relentless when trying to get his way, he is not a giant monster that can’t be contained, not if people assert their will against him. Regardless of what the “smart set” says, we will put Trump in his place by refusing to retreat while pushing him back. If that means, dealing with violence and some stuff getting broken, omelets and eggs, my friends. We sit down and play Kumbaya, he will crush us. Stand up, fight back, never surrender.
A short note on the death of Sly Stone: Growing up in Vallejo, California, Sly Stone was a kid when he joined his siblings in a family gospel group. By age seven, he could sing and play guitar, piano, and drums. As a teenager, he was playing music, spinning records on the radio, and engineering recording sessions. Soon he became a producer.
Sly was open to all kinds of music – gospel, R&B, garage rock, sunshine pop, jazz, etc. His abilities, interests, and imagination were vital in creating his signature project, Sly & the Family Stone, who not only had a string of hits but made Sly one of the three pillars of funk. With James Brown and George Clinton, Sly was a pioneer, an artist who took soul music into new territory, areas that are continuing to give us more.
Sidelined by mental health and drug issues, Sly disappeared for way too long. Fortunately, the artist Questlove befriended Sly and helped give him some fruitful years before he died this past Monday.
Thank you, Mice Elf, the Great Sly Stone.