I guess I was expecting more. More people, more coverage, a more coherent message.
Yesterday, I walked downtown to check out one of the protests. In addition to it being May Day, yesterday was International Workers’ Day. While the pre-protest coverage in the local news indicated that many of the marches would be focused on calling for a cease-fire in Gaza, that was only part of the mish-mosh of messages I saw being delivered outside of the Ferry Building.
I started the day as I usually do. I ate my waffles. I read the news. I wrote for a bit. I’m in the middle of writing something that’s a little more journalistic in style but still a personal opinion piece. Right now it’s just under 4,000 words with links to 19 or 20 different sources. Getting caught up in the writing (with my usual flair for righteous indignation), I had forgotten about the protests. By 10:30am, it was already too late for me to get to one of them, but if I was quick with a shower and an early lunch, I could be out the door by 11:30 and downtown in time to see what the 12:30pm protest was about.
I don’t think of myself as much of a protest joiner type of guy. I’m curious enough to show up, but I’m probably not going to be the one holding a sign or a bullhorn. I’m more of a witness bearer than anything else.
That said, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, I marched as part of the BLM movement in Memphis. It was both moving and powerful and at the time, participating felt like the only agency I had in registering my opposition to what was going on in America. I am an anti-war, anti-violence peacenik. I don’t like the militarization of our police forces, and I don’t like that we’re supporting the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians in foreign countries and territories. Had I been old enough, I probably would have protested the first Iraq war (instead, I stopped reciting and sometimes sat during the Pledge of Allegiance). I suspect had I been single and living in a city, I would have protested the second Iraq war as well as the war in Afghanistan. I’m willing to concede a handful of examples where violence may have been necessary (stopping the Nazis), but I see it as a solution of absolute last resort. I’m also very left leaning when it comes to addressing the systemic issues baked into our capitalist system. I support unions, but I don’t always support union tactics. I want to see a greater share of wealth go to the actual workers as opposed to shareholders. I would love to see a meritocracy in which hard work pays better than having access to money and finance pays. As such, a protest in support of workers’ rights and in support of a cease-fire in Gaza seemed like it’d be worth checking out.
With my earbuds in, I left the apartment at 11:33. It was sunny and warm. Because of the heat, the brisk pace of my walk, and a bit of nervousness, I was sweating. Because I was sweating, I was sure every cop I passed (I didn’t pass very many cops) had his or her eye trained on me as a potential agitator. I’m not an agitator nor do I harbor fantasies of agitating. But these are the things I think about as I walk to a protest that I’m not sure I want to join. At times, I could hear helicopters circling a different part of the city and in the distance I could hear sirens. These aren’t unusual occurrences in a city, but again, in the context of city-wide protests, my senses were extra tingly. A fighter jet flew overhead… again, a pretty normal occurrence here (I see them at least once a week). As I got closer to the gathering point for the protest, I took my earbuds out so that I could have my full wits (diminished though they may be) about me.
I showed up at Harry Bridges Plaza at around 12:25. Bridges was a union leader and is credited with helping to found the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. The plaza is named after him, but as one of the speakers pointed out, there is supposed to be a statue, but the city claims they can’t afford one. This was a recurring theme among many of the speakers – a sense of personal indignation over their agenda’s not being met. I guess some of that is to be expected at a protest – expressing indignation is kinda the point.
The protest was supposed to start at 12:30. Thinking, you know, this is San Francisco – a hotbed for activism, I was expecting upwards of a few hundred people. At 12:30, there might have been 10 or 15 people getting things set up. I walked across the street to stand in the shade and watch from a distance. I got bored and walked into the Ferry Building. When I came back out a few minutes later, the crowd had grown to about 50, and a man was talking into a microphone. I moved in closer. The sun was blazing down. A woman was writing things on the sidewalk in pastel chalk: “Solidarity to the Students” and such things. A woman closer to the front held an anti-war poster with red streaks and handprints on it – the whole blood on one’s hands thing.
The guy talking into the microphone explained the significance of the plaza. He was the one complaining about the city budget. $15 billion and they can’t afford a statue. The messages were all over the place. We can afford wars, but not to take care of our homeless. We’re subsidizing big tech and they’re cutting jobs. The workers can’t afford to live here anymore. It’s not that these things are incorrect, but much like my rambling blog posts, there was little narrative structure to tie these points together. A woman came up and shared an anti-AI poem, that didn’t feel very much like a poem.
At one point a guy casually joined the crowd. He was completely naked except for his shoes and a scrap of fabric the size of a teabag. Some people handed him some fliers and I thought – where’s he gonna put them, he doesn’t have any pockets. My brother called and I stepped into the shade for a bit.
Another woman spoke. She used to be with a union, but that union wouldn’t support her and they were corrupt, and she was being blamed for bringing up resolutions that would expose their corruption but people wouldn’t vote on her resolutions and they couldn’t get a quorum and her own colleagues didn’t support her and that’s why that union is bad and why she’s no longer with them.
My head was starting to hurt. Someone should have eased her away from the microphone 10 or 15 minutes sooner than when she finished. How do we give space to people who have stories to share, and remain on point?
I went back into the shade and leaned against a post. I watched as three police officers crossed the street towards the Ferry Building. Half-way across, they turned around and started running. Sirens in the distance could be heard moving closer. More officers began running in the same direction – probably about 10 or 15 of them. One of them had a bean bag or rubber bullet rifle drawn. All of this was away from the crowd, and not many people seemed to notice. I watched as the officers returned to their cars – whatever was going on was now a few blocks away. I rejoined the group in the sun.
A guy wandered into the crowd with a small wooden cart adorned with anti-war buttons and maybe some marijuana buttons. He played anti-war songs on a small radio. The woman with the chalk kept writing. Another woman spoke. She had been terminated from one of the more well-known nonprofits in the city. She told the audience that the nonprofits are making everything worse and taking everyone’s money. At this point, it was beginning to feel flaky and disorganized. I was thinking that this is why nobody will take these protests seriously – some of the people speaking seemed like tin-foil hat kooks. I left.
I saw on twitter that one of the other protests was making it’s way towards City Hall and then probably towards the bridge. Shutting down bridges is a popular tactic in marches. They did it in Memphis. They’ve done it here several times recently. The DA here has suggested that people who were stuck in traffic on the bridge could be considered victims of false imprisonment and has encouraged them to come forward and maybe press charges. While not as egregious as the Texas law that offers a “bounty” for citizens to turn other citizens in for seeking an abortion, this is yet another example of “tough on crime” officials trying to turn the public against each other. And sure, being stuck in traffic because of a protest sucks… but so does being stuck on a tarmac or on a train… I’ve been in both situations and have never gotten restitution or been considered a victim of false imprisonment. I guess it’s different when corporations do it as part of their business model of not investing in their own infrastructure and services.
I started walking towards City Hall. As I walked I was looking for live updates on Twitter (checking news accounts and hashtags). I couldn’t find anything. Not one outlet was reporting on what was going on – or if they were, Twitter was suppressing the tweets. Aside from a farmers’ market, a book sale at the library, and the usual folks milling about, the civic center area was empty. I sat in the shade and scrolled twitter for information. Nothing. I gave up and went to a bar.
In their coverage of the protests, The San Francisco Chronicle wrote: “The San Francisco protest, inspired by the May Day Vietnam War protests of 1971 that resulted in the largest mass arrest in U.S. history, is an annual pro-labor rally.” and “Hundreds of May Day protesters marched through San Francisco city streets and dozens more rallied outside a closed Port of Oakland, both groups chanting for workers’ rights — a cause made more urgent than ever by the war in Gaza, participants said.”
I guess I went to the wrong protest – even so, I was expecting more from the one I attended. I guess things have changed since 1971. These protests ain’t what they used to be.