Christoph Pearson

6/19/20
Essay 1

The Party at the Protest

“We are not touching you,” a masked woman with red pigtails said to another woman

who was covered from head to toe and aiming a camera. A group of about a dozen people,

arms raised, encircled the woman with the camera and she sat on the ground. “We are asking

you to please leave. You are a threat. We are here in peace. We are trying to protect each

other. What are you doing? Are you here to protect?”

Other voices bubble up from the crowd.

“No violence!”

“You need to let me do what the fuck I do,” said a man holding a PBR can in one of his

outstretched hands above the woman on the ground.

Tensions were high. Some of the people probably were too. As the group slowly

overwhelmed the woman with numbers of people and proximity, she rose. The group moved as

an amoebiod unit, encompassing the woman with temporary arm-like projections. When the

group brushed against road barriers and two large pickup trucks that blocked traffic, the group

spit the woman out into greater Seattle.

I crossed the border from Seattle into the newly consecrated Capitol Hill Autonomous

Zone, or CHAZ as it is sometimes known, as this scene unfolded. (The name is a work in

progress and several acronyms currently float about the news cycle). As long as I was on foot,

there was no barrier to entry. But should I act in such a way that the inhabitants of this zone

deem offensive, my invisible visa would be immediately revoked.

I asked a guy standing around what the woman had done. He said she had been yelling

to interrupt a speaker. Down the street at the intersection was a small stage and sound system.
A local Native American tribe led a crowd in songs of healing. A tipi had been erected and

painted with a message to Governor Jay Inslee to end funding for fossil fuel projects. The smell

of sage filled the air. The story about the woman made it sound like she was there to instigate a

conflict and record it. There’s no telling, really.

CHAZ is not a landscape of easy or reliable answers. The Seattle Police Chief circulated

a rumor--since proven false--that armed security volunteers were demanding money from

businesses within the six-block zone that has been effectively taken over by the people. Two

days before my visit, I saw a picture in a Fox News article that showed a guy holding a semi-

automatic machine gun as he guarded a barricade to the district. I saw the picture and thought,

My god! It’s a free-for-all. The Seattle Times pointed out that the image of the guard had been

photoshopped.

This woman could have been up to anything. She could have been ideologically

opposed to Black Lives Matter. She could have been paid and instructed to cause a

disturbance, then smear the protest with a viral video. If agents really go into these types of

protests and orchestrate a scene that will discredit a movement, then this is their theater. If

individuals go in with the agenda to point out some kind of flaw or hypocrisy, then this is their

forum. When you can’t trust what you read, what you’re told, or what you see, who knows what

to believe. It makes me feel helpless and hopeless. And I don’t even live here!

In the US, and now around the world, urban streets have been rocked by protests in

response to the murder of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, by police officers in

Minneapolis. Disturbing as it is, Floyd’s death is one node in a net of police brutality targeting

minorities that entangles our social fabric. This type of death is, sadly, nothing new. With police

precincts and local businesses being looted and burned, many have wondered why the

response has been so extreme now. Some pundits point to the prolonged stay-at-home orders

set in place to contain the coronavirus outbreak. While the outrage is justified, I have to agree

that with so many people having been cooped up in homes or apartments for months, with
anxiety about health and the economy running so deep, the death of George Floyd catapulted

people out of their isolation.

In Seattle, it looked like this: After the murder of George Floyd, protesters marched on

the East Precinct in Capitol Hill where they faced off against police night after night. On Sunday,

June 7th, the violence between the protesters and police escalated. The word of the Seattle

Police Department (for whatever that’s worth) was that protesters threw rocks and other objects

at the police. The SPD, clad in riot gear and armed with shields, employed tear gas, flashbangs,

and other non-lethal deterrents. The next day, the police chief was ordered to abandon the East

Precinct. The protesters set up roadblocks and claimed the office as their own. Someone spray

painted “People,” over the “Police,” making the edifice the “Seattle People Department.”

I did not come to protest. Nor did I come as a reporter, exactly. I understand intellectually

and emotionally that minorities receive a disproportionate amount of injustice in America and

that a disproportionate amount of opportunity is withheld. But, I do not know this fully. I am a

white male. Though I teach English to immigrants and minorities, I only hear the stories. I am

the audience, not the narrator.

The whole CHAZ/CHOP district is covered in murals and graffiti. Some of the murals are

heart-wrenching and beautiful for how they pay tribute to the lives sacrificed on the altar of

social change. Candles and flowers adorned the vigils for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and

Tacoma’s own Manuel Ellis who died in March in the same manner as Floyd.

Mixed into the makeshift memorials, were the signs of protest and change. Defund the

Police, Black Lives Matter, End Police Brutality. More directly, there was one sign that asked,

White People! What are your concrete commitments to CHANGE?

In contrast to the signs made, were the screams of rage that erupted from the streets in

the form of graffiti. I could not identify with the violent reality they proffered. No Good Cops.

Police is the enemy. Burn Money. Looting=Robinhood. We won’t stop til there’s no more cops.

Kill the masters. Eat the rich.

 The city felt foreign to me, which was fitting because I was a tourist. Looking around the

crowd, I saw among the activists and revolutionaries, artists and aid workers, people who were

there for the spectacle. Mayor Jenny Durkan characterized the vibe as being akin to a block

party or street festival--not entirely unusual in this part of Seattle. Certainly there are narratives

being promulgated that seek to paint the takeover of a police precinct as less of a threat than it

would initially sound. The ability to pretend this is Mardi Gras or a gay pride parade is a handy

veil to hind behind when you don’t have an obvious course of action. Either the police take

back--with force--their territory (a PR nightmare), bargain with the community, or they wait for

the lack of cohesion among the protesters to unravel the experiment. The longer the city lets

things go, the more that rumor and unrest threatens to move the priority of residents and

business owners back to organized security.

I walked from the former police station towards Cal Anderson Park. I smelled spray paint

fumes, sage, and weed smoke. Songs from what sounded like the meat of a wedding DJ’s

playlist blared over a baseball field full of people. Close to the speakers, people danced. Further

afield, groups of people sat around like this was an outdoor festival. I sat down to take a

breather. Next to me were three, rather burly, latino men. I watched as one guy poked a hole in

a can of White Claw, an alcoholic seltzer. The guys were shotgunning (drinking a can in one go)

the drinks. And they had a pile of empty cans.

It was hard to decide where the protest ended and the party began. Booths for social

organizations lined the perimeter of the park. Stations set up all over the district distributed

snacks, water, face masks, and hand sanitizer. Signs posted listed the requests for donations.

Conservative media outlets have portrayed these requests as evidence that people need

handouts and support to maintain their lives within this liberal playground. What I saw was that

the donations were needed only to sustain the health and comfort of people spending their days

here. The QFC grocery store was still open. Restaurants and street vendors enjoyed long lines
of customers. At face value, people looked to be reveling in social interaction while coming

together to express grief, frustration, and anger.

Hanging from a backstop fence at the park was a list of demands under the BLM banner.

1. Stay under the DOJ consent decree

2. END the Curfew

3. Display your badge number

4. Establish a de-escalation team: I-940 was not enough

5. Re-allocate funding from SPD to health and social services

Numbers one and two had red Xs to indicate that those demands had been met. The list

did not look too unreasonable to me, though, I didn’t know what the I-940 bill was, and taking

money from the police for social services sounded complicated. However, these were the only

posted demands I saw.

Digging into the news about this event reveals a far more extensive list of demands. The

practicality of the demands runs the gamut from increasing the focus on Native American and

Black history in Washington State education to defunding and abolishing the Seattle Police

Department, including pensions, and the “criminal justice apparatus.” They want all confederate

monuments in Seattle removed. There is only one and it is a memorial in a cemetery. They want

rent control and an end to evictions. Any person of color currently incarcerated for a violent

crime should be retried by a jury of color. The people of Seattle need to seek out black-owned

businesses. The list goes on and on, broken down by categories.

Who authored these demands? It’s not clear. But, it appeared to me that they were not

aligned with the Black Lives Matter organization. So, even when the street of a city block is

painted with those words, the ambitions of the individuals who kicked the police and traffic off

the road aspire to a different agenda.

I don’t consider myself to be a very political person. I don’t have to be. I make my way

and society makes its own. When I make a political decision, it usually involves something
distant that moves me emotionally. I feel something is morally right or wrong and I cast my drop

in the bucket. Here in Capitol Hill, my eyes well up with tears seeing the lists of people of color

killed by cops, or hearing the anger built up over centuries of cruelty and knowing that in some

parts of America, the Civil War never ended. What I feel is the emotional pain that moral

injustice and corruption are still defining characteristics of our society’s institutions.

To get in my car is the stamp in my passport on the return voyage. I walk away with

stories to talk about and residual feelings I collected by walking around a district in Seattle. But I

don’t know what to do with them. When I get home, the experience is basically over for me. It

doesn’t cross my mind that, out of someone’s mistake, ignorance, or prejudice, I could be in

harm’s way. It has never occurred to me that the people with the social mandate and military

weaponry to enforce our laws would turn against me. I want a greater police presence in my

neighborhood because it makes me feel safer.

I’m thrust into the conflict of my demographic: American, liberal-ish, millennial, white,

heterosexual, male. I’m part of the social hegemony. For myself, I can turn on or off this fight

practically at will. It’s not hard to watch a man die by the force of a man in uniform and see we

have a serious problem. What is extremely difficult is teasing apart what is happening in

response. I can’t believe the news because I can’t believe the representatives of public

institutions whom the news quotes. I can’t even believe my own eyes. But when I hear a man

squeak out, “I can’t breathe,” and there’s an officer’s knee on his neck, I can believe my ears.

When I hear Floyd’s words echo across cities around the world, I can believe my ears again.

Whenever most tragedies happen, the initial horror gives way to a multitude of

perspectives on the way forward. The fight then becomes how to make others adopt yours. That

is where I see the Capitol Hill protest project. Some say “abolish,” others say, “defund.” When

more and more locals have to take matters, and guns, into their own hands to feel protected, the

calls for police to return will grow louder. When local, state, or the national government passes
laws to address the issue, officers will say they can’t do their job. The activists will say it’s not

enough. Both will probably be right.

Personally, I don’t see a destination on the horizon. We as a society are trying to get

somewhere we’ve never been. We’ve never even heard of the place. We don’t know where it is

or if it even exists. There is no return to a better America. We can only dream that sweet dream.

The eminent Stanford professor and doctor of neuroendocrinology, Dr. Robert Sapolsky,

once answered a question about what he thinks our future society will look back on our times

and say we got wrong. He said it was the justice system. Our current rule of law and

punishment hinges on notions of our free will dictating our actions rather than our biology. Dr.

Sapolsky backs up his response with statistics and case studies (he wrote a book on the

subject) supporting his premise that genetic, neonatal, environmental, and biological influences

determine our behavior. They shape the regions in the brain that make decisions, that are quick

to anger, that are desperate. Those changes are passed down through the womb. Hearing him

speak on how social inequalities affect the biology of individuals convinces me just how far off

an answer truly is. His words mean nothing to an inner-city single mother struggling to keep her

kids fed. They mean nothing to the communities that suffer when one of their own is killed.

Worst of all is that his words seem to mean little to the politicians making the laws and the

wardens and sheriffs enforcing them. But they mean something to me. I hear that cross-

discipline scientific methodology is teasing apart the unseen layers of human nature that

manifest as the perpetuation of inequity. There is hope that the way to understand the problem

is evolving beyond politics and economics. Perhaps one day, with the right science, and the

right political will, solutions will appear in the gilded halls of marble built by slaves and in the

blocks of concrete and iron that house far too many of their descendants. And if we can return

to the hope for that day to come, that’s probably about as close as we’re going to get for now.