I’m not saying that it isn’t obviously bad to have unmarked squads snatching people but the way some of this reaction is going it’s like everyone forgot about the black sites in Chicago
I mean it was a whole thing that happened there is all
Hard to analyze how bad something is when you think history has just begun perhaps? And I get it, it’s a pandemic, and unprecedented protests, and the inclination of one’s panic-stricken brain is to process all threats as new
Hey hi! If you’re thinking about covering protests:
Hold your phone horizontally
Don’t feel like you have to talk every second, sometimes narration actually hinders a story
Do block your mic if a standerby is loudly losing their shit
I just watched an arrest where folk were so loud about being outraged about the arrest they drowned out the experienced organizers trying to loudly explain what was happening for the record
Keep in mind what you’re doing and if you can maximize that outcome
Particularly if someone is injured and arrested, try to get video of their injury and their face, clearly narrate what’s happening, ask them if you can who to call for them
Post that if it feels safe; for instance posting video of me with an eye out would have been useful
I’ve been covering protests for years, and I stay in touch with folk. What I’ve found is most anyone who’s had a gun pointed at them by the state shows signs of trauma, and further most folk don’t have access to therapy nor state structures in order to get a diagnosis.
Thing is naming your pain is really only helpful in a legal, financial or therapeutic framework in which one might expect some relief. Otherwise it’s just giving yourself another preexisting condition or one more untended medical issue to wrestle with.
Until quite recently one wouldn’t expect to see the kinds of people with access to things like therapy out in the streets during anything but performative protests; the middle classes tend to register their discontent in the daytime and the police tend to treat them politely
A story, for people who will understand how hilarious this is:
So a couple months ago i called around to pretty much every local cattle farmer. Got some dude who works off a flip phone, said he’d add me to “the list.”
I told him I wanted a half beef and also was in the market for pork if he had hogs, hoping that if I was a customer on the pork side I’d get preferenced on the beef list what with the whole supply chain breaking down and whatnot
Anyway dude (still don’t know his name) tells me he surely does sell pork and he’ll call me back sometime
I give it a reasonable amount of time and then I wander off to do my job and get shot in the face and promptly forget to call my guy back about the pork
(Hi folks who have been here, someone brought me whiskey and it’s just past midnight and we’re settling in for a serious deliberation of the concept of welfare in various nations, I’m back, love y’all)
So anyway in the US we have fragmented our social services, which is to say that depending on the source of money that might be federal, state, county, or city depending on the budget.
Also, lots of smaller bodies depend on federal grants to fund their initiatives!
I actually don’t know how to explain to people that some parents care about kids that aren’t their own legal responsibilities is I guess what I’m learning
It’s weird that some of y’all are just like “well MINE can stay home so that’s me done being concerned”
Fucking grow
I mean I understand fear, god knows, but also if you’ve got some space maybe worry for the parents who have none? Like we live in a society or some shit?
Idk, probably the whiskey talking, it’s 2020, we can’t merely expect humanity from humans these days
Like how the fuck am I gonna buy food if other kids’ parents ain’t working at the supermarket, what planet’s economy do folk think this is? I’m lucky as hell that my job can be done anywhere but even my rustic farm-direct prepper ass couldn’t sustain my family without others
So. As I said this morning in Congress, today is the one month anniversary of the last day I woke up with two working eyes.
I have not gone a single day since then without doing interviews/panels/being a research subject/being a witness
Y’all. Getting shot is fucking TIRING.
Anyway I’ve also, y’know, been dealing with a new and fairly major disability. And if I can be so bold, and with much love to the well-meaning: it’s a pandemic and bad shit is gonna happen to your friends, before we even get into evictions and uprisings and whatever else 2020 has
You know what’s been great? People who’ve just been like “hugs I love you, lmk if I can help.”
You know what’s sucked? People telling me how badly they feel about this thing I live with. People demanding to help so then I have to think of ways for them to help them help me.
Y’all, Eric Trump is mking his entrance and he’s throwing maga hats into the audience
He is not a man with much range
I think I’ve seen more people wearing sunglasses inside ethan I have people wearing masks, FWIW
Completely non-scientific count to be sure
Eric Trump is now asking his wife if she’s got something great planned for him for Father’s day, which he thought was today, and then he said he wantedto be left alone because kids are a lot of work.
So there’s like eight of us that lost an eye during these protests and we’re starting to find and talk to each other and it is *hilarious*
Three of us are going camping to clear our heads a bit and just process together and god bless the internet that makes that possible
(Anyone else in the club is welcome just we haven’t been able to talk to them yet, but imagine if this turns into like some kind of police-related blindness event in the woods)
So, uh, I’m pretty sure this whole thing just radicalized my kids
And it makes sense because I also would suddenly be a hardcore anti fascist if police had shot out my mom’s eye when I was seven
But, like. If you think I’m hard, wait’ll you see what my girls do when they grow
My eldest was terrified that we wouldn’t be able to leave the house or that the officer who tagged me was gonna come finish the job and I had to explain to her that I’m white so the only time a cop will shoot me is if I’m working, so now she’s extra mad because that’s racist
And that’s complex for her cause she doesn’t want me to get hurt anymore but she’s grappling with the notion that everyone doesn’t get that and she’s trying to find words for her upset so her solution is that she now wants to go protest with Black kids as like a bodyguard
Hey folks: now is the time to hit the streets. I don’t say that lightly; I know what it could cost. But if you’ve been waiting for that sign this would be it.
It’s a lot to ask. But our other option is quiescence and frightened obedience.
Now it’s a numbers game.
What they’re saying is it’s just rioters and poor people, it’s a violent rabble, it’s not the Good People
So it’s gonna take clergy and bankers and people who so far have been safe in their homes while their cities burned a few miles away, all flooding out to say no
The only way to resist fascism is to overwhelm it, and this is the last of many steps down that path.
Okay because people are awful and we can’t even take a day off it comes to my attention that some folks are using my injury to argue that people should stop protesting
Fuck that, stay in the streets double for me, cause I can’t. It was police who shot me, not protesters.
It was protesters who got me to the hospital, who gave me medical supplies and acted as my eyes when I couldn’t see past the blood and swelling
I am not your establishment’s argument. And I am happy to tell you so directly.
Dunno who y’all thought you were fucking around with but I’m the girl that loses an eye and goes back to work the next day. I ain’t got time for nonsense.
an update: I am permanently blind in my left eye, and the docs absolutely refuse to let me go back to work for they say six weeks. I’m definitely not allowed to be near smoke or gas.
Usually if I had to stay home I’d spend a lot of time amplifying folk but reading hurts today
I hat we think happened is I took a rubber bullet to the face. It exploded my eyeball, which has now been patched back together but who knows if it’ll need more surgery. My vision is gone no matter what it winds up looking like scar wise
But it wasn’t my photography eye so it’s not career-ending. I can still see flowers and sunsets, just maybe I won’t be able to tell how far away they are.
So I’m gonna keep reporting from Minneapolis until we figure out how to get me and my car home cause I can’t drive anymore
Good morning folks! I’m safe, awake and reviewing my photos. I don’t think I have much commentary yet because tbh I’ve only been on the ground for a few hours and I don’t have a solid handle yet. But some first impressions:
1. I don’t know where folk have landed on the word “riot.” I’m not sure what else you call a night with that much fire.
But I have seen a lot of buildings burn, and tbh there’s not thick violence in the air. Violence is nearly incidental to the strength of the statement.
In Missouri when the Delmar Loop got smashed up it was pure chaotic rage, borne of months in a police state. This was...more of a signal. A warning.
With that said, I was not in St Paul and I’m learning quickly that this place is five cities, not two
2 added to My Authors