by Laura Love
The inviting smell of brewing coffee wafted to the stage and made our crazy quilt village feel like home. Many of the people in the breakfast line had been homeless for ages and had taken shelter in downtown Oakland long before we got there, but were now welcoming the community and protection our presence lent them. As out of hand as nighttimes sometimes got at #OO, the old-timers assured us things had gotten much better after we arrived. They regaled us with stories of really horrific incidents that had ended in serious bloodshed and even death. Even though I was certain there were at least one or two murderers and rapists in our midst, it filled me with gladness to be a part of this fabulous melting pot—everyone engaging in that yawny, sleepy morning small talk that binds us together and makes us family.
I introduced myself quickly before registering performers arriving to the stage, always keeping an eye out for last-minute additions, when I looked over toward the kitchen and saw a tall, regal woman, with a marvelous bushy coiffure, walking toward me from the kitchen area, accompanied by another mocha-skinned beauty. I immediately recognized her as one of my childhood heroes from the Civil Rights Movement—Angela Davis. I confess, I was instantaneously immobilized and rendered daft by the very sight of her unmistakable face and hair. In the late 1960s, this woman had transformed me, my mother, and my sister, in the blink of an eye, from obedient, pressed hair Negroes, to twelve-inch Afro–flaunting, fist-pumping, “Black Power” shouting Soul Sisters as we watched her, agape, from our first colored television set. Her scathing, unapologetic analyses of racism and injustice in America floored us, and then redefined us. That very night, my mom cut off our long plaits and reshaped our hair into superb “naturals” that felt so liberating, I tossed my head back like a stallion as I strutted into my all-white, third grade Catholic school classroom the next morning. I remember that as the first time in my life I felt lucky, instead of cursed, to be black. That feeling has remained with me all my life, and I was forever beholden to her for creating it. So much so that I wanted to tackle her to the ground and smother her with gratitude when I laid eyes on her. I suddenly understood how those hysterical, seizing, Beatle, fans could debase themselves so, watching John, Paul, George, and Ringo stride onto the stage to perform on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. I forgot all about my job, as I dashed my clipboard to the pavement and accosted her like a crazed stalker—gushing like a madwoman as I shadowed her to the Fourteenth and Broadway stage. She was tolerant of the intrusion, but averted her eyes from me when ushered onto the stage to impart a brief, but memorable speech. Her parting pronouncement, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” reverberated through my core as I rushed back to the duties I’d so thoroughly abdicated after her arrival.
The sun shone brightly on us all day as rappers rapped, dancers danced, singers sang, poets recited, and actors acted. My own short set with Bluegrass legend Laurie Lewis and stellar guitarist, Shelley Doty, went well and by three thirty so many thousands of people had amassed in the Plaza, we had to shut our stage down half an hour early to send marchers out in waves to the Port of Oakland. There were six buses ferrying the elderly and disabled along the route, while large union contingents milled around, waiting for their turn to go forward. Entire families, brass bands, dogs with bandanas, drummers, unaffiliated marchers, and all kinds of professionals adorned the route, in perfect step with teachers, doctors, truck drivers, and health-care workers. I could see neither the beginning nor the end of the two-mile route, as it snaked westward down Fourteenth Street. Our lengthy processional concluded at the Port, where we hoped to shut down the evening shift. It was our aim to disrupt commerce and disallow business as usual—to demonstrate to the owners, investment firm Goldman Sachs, that we meant to cost them money and flex our collective muscle. We wanted to compel them to treat the longshoremen and truckers better. We also wanted to prove that we the people have the power, and their livelihoods depended on our disposition toward them. In recent years they busted unions by dishonoring contracts with them and hiring non-union laborers to drive down wages and benefits. Things had gotten so bad that the Port workers had gone on strike, insisting that they were routinely working dangerously long hours, with overloaded vehicles and unsafe conditions—sometimes making less than minimum wage, often with no benefits. The day’s agenda had wiped me out, but I enthusiastically walked the dozens of flat surface streets in solidarity with the large crowd. It wasn’t until sunset, when I perched on a hilltop overlooking the march, that I saw how many people were actually there. I was dumbfounded to realize there were tens of thousands of us in an almost endless stream of humanity. The Oakland Police Chief, Howard Jordan, went on the news that night with a preposterous crowd estimate of between three and five thousand. Months later, aerial footage released by news helicopters, confirmed the number to be nearly one hundred thousand. Upon entry to the Port, most of us broke off into groups, to block individual terminals and prevent trucks from coming through the gates for the night shift. The drivers were obviously expecting us, and many chose to park adjacent to the roadway, honking and waving their appreciation for us. A small minority displayed minor irritation with our invasion, but the overwhelming majority gave us peace signs, high fives, and thumbs up. Some even got out of their trucks and hugged us, as they expressed how good it made them feel to see that someone cared about what they were going through. A handful of them told me that they’d been in a dispute with the operators for years, trying to advocate for better wages and working conditions from the owners. It meant a lot to most that someone outside their profession cared enough to organize in support of their efforts. We did open our human gate to allow the retiring shift to leave, but no workers were permitted to enter. Within a couple of hours the Port was declared unsafe to operate and the evening shift was declared cancelled. Someone grabbed a bullhorn and relayed the news to us which was met with deafening whoops and cheers. After our victory, I stayed to dance and sing with others before finally returning to Oscar Grant Plaza, where a few thousand of us lingered to talk and groove to the recorded music Brian was treating us to from the back of his sound truck. It was some time after midnight when I fell into my cozy tent home, took a long pull on my bottle, and fell triumphantly asleep.
Chapter 3
Oakland General Strike—N2
There we sat, peace signs extended, nine or ten feet in front of three hundred uniformed, fully armed police officers in riot gear. Three rows of fifty in front of me and three rows of fifty beside me on the right. Three different agencies in all were represented. The Oakland cops were in the lead, followed by Santa Rita County cops, and a SWAT team. An hour earlier, I had been comfortably bedded down in my tent, after a life changing day of revolutionary miracles. Wednesday, November 2, 2011, had been the day of the massively attended, hugely successful Oakland General Strike. It was the realization of a long held dream—of people rising up and demanding their right to the America we were promised—“land of the free and the home of the brave.” I understood that this beautiful ideal required diligence, bravery, and sacrifice on each citizen’s part. I treasured the noble doctrine put forth by our forefathers along with Thomas Jefferson’s vision of a nation where, “Dissent is patriotic,” and “One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” In many places around the globe, the trajectory of a life was determined by the accident of birth, but not so in these United States. I counted myself lucky to be born into a country where, theoretically, anyone could improve their station, graduate college, own a house, or even become president one day—where immigrants were introduced to their new home by a kind, compassionate Lady Liberty, who welcomed them with open arms, and assured them that the indignities they’d suffered thus far were now over.
Though, in reality, my native land had always fallen somewhere short of this idyllic wonderland, I always believed that it was possible, with some adjustments, to come much closer than this. I knew that my country was a unique and grand experiment. It once relegated my mother and her blackness to the bac
k of the bus—then awakened to the barbarity of its actions, and went on to have an epiphany, culminating in the election of a man with that same original sin to the presidency. Could this magical oasis also suddenly have an awakening about the assaults that corporations, banks, and the richest people on earth were committing against us—the masses, the proletariat in the twenty-first century? And so, given my undying devotion to the stars and stripes, how had I come to be sitting there, on a cordoned-off downtown street in Oakland, faced and flanked by severe looking men with guns and tear gas bombs, that were trained directly at me. Physically, I knew how I’d gotten there. I heard the concussions shaking the ground under my body, and then heard the screams, “Poh—lice, Poh—lice! Y’all motherfuckers get up outta your tents—they fixin’ to blow this motherfucker up again!” I crammed all my stuff into a suitcase and considered running, not walking, to the nearest airport. To my way of thinking, there was no dishonor in hightailing my fifty-one-year old, comfortable, plump behind back to my mountain home, nestled inside 160 acres of verdant forestland. What would be the harm in retreating back to my gardens and the horses—reacquainting myself with my fourth grade daughter and the rest of my dear family, whom I’d left three weeks earlier to participate in first, Occupy Albany, then Occupy Wall Street, and finally this, Occupy Oakland? But instead, angered by the intrusion into my perfect day, I stumbled to my feet and staggered toward the commotion just outside the camp on San Pablo Street. There I found hundreds of shocked celebrants—leftovers from the successful port action—standing around in disbelief at what had just transpired. Seconds before, they were talking, dancing, and listening to music—digging the after-party—when along came a handful of Black Bloc anarchists, who swooped in, dragged over a green metal dumpster, and set its contents ablaze. They’d also broken a couple of plate glass windows on the downtown OPD criminal investigation/recruiting office, which was, unfortunately, located adjacent to our tent village in the plaza. There were ten or eleven of them, all dressed in black, with homemade shields and face masks, whooping and hollering like errant teenagers when I walked onto the scene. I sidestepped them with ease, as I looked north up the street and saw a multitiered row of about a hundred and fifty riot police officers facing us from about half a block away. They had just assembled and fired tear gas canisters and flashbang grenades into the crowd before I got there. A thick cloud of gas hung in the air and burned my nose, eyes, and throat. Wow, my first taste of tear gas, I thought, almost proudly, as I surveyed the scene. Some cops had their guns up and trained on us, while others merely stood there—eyes locked forward. I ran the distance to them, leaving about ten feet of pavement between us, and began imploring them to stop firing. Seeing them, expressionless, armed to the teeth, and looking on the verge of shooting everyone into swiss cheese knocked something loose inside me, and I felt an unexpected sob leap into my throat as I began pleading, “Please don’t hurt them—they’re just kids. They have a right to their anger. Don’t you hope your sons and daughters will get to go to college someday? Most of these kids did everything right. They stayed out of trouble and got good grades, and now they’re in debt up to their ears. They’re living at home with their parents—working for minimum wage at Starbucks. That’s not going to pay the bills. They’re mad because they know they’re screwed. Some of them are really smart and still won’t ever be able to afford college. Wouldn’t you be mad? Aren’t you mad? Are any of you having a hard time coming up with the money for your kid’s education? Are you feeling a little bit squeezed? How’s that going for you? Is that going well? Do any of you have grown kids at home, occupying your couches, because there aren’t enough decent jobs out there? If you need to arrest someone, go after the ones that broke the windows and torched the dumpster. Most of them are still right over there. Right there in the black jeans, with the shields and masks and leather jackets. That big ‘A’ on their backs stands for, “arrest me.” They’re the only ones that caused any damage, so maybe you should go after them. They’re easy to spot. They’re not even running. In fact, they’re over there waving at you. But these kids over here, they’re not thugs—they’re not even doing anything illegal. Why would you hurt these kids when they’re being peaceful?”
One officer said, “Look lady, these ain’t kids, they’re over eighteen.” Nonetheless, the whole row of cops seemed to hesitate, as if they might be mulling over my words. Some registered uncertainty while others appeared to be flummoxed about what to do next. Even though none resembled the friendly “peace officers” Catholic nuns advised me to seek out if I was in trouble, it was encouraging that no one had shot me yet. I did see a few of them on my right begin to advance slightly, so I ran over to them, gesticulating madly, imploring them to think about what they were about to do. I remembered my grade school teachers saying that calling “the authorities” could get you out of a bad situation in a hurry. These guys looked much more likely to put me in a bad situation than to get me out of one. Nonetheless, I tried to stay on track, beseeching them again and again to think about their own children and how slim their chances of getting ahead were becoming. I riffed as long as I could, often reaching for what I hoped would be compelling imagery to give things a chance to simmer down. Some of the words coming out of my mouth actually seemed to be having an effect for a while—judging by the fact that I was still alive. I kept filibustering, but was running out of material, and now resorting to blurting out anything that came to mind. “Yeah, soooo, don’t you want your kids to have like, clean water and fresh air and healthy food and shiny new textbooks and weekend trips to the petting zoo and stuff like that when they grow up? Yeah, wouldn’t it be nicer if the mayor had asked you all to come down here and talk with us, or help us plant flowers and plant vegetables, instead of tear gassing us and shooting us with bean bags? ‘Cause I mean I’ve never actually been hit by a rubber bullet or a beanbag, but I bet it smarts right? They gotta be goin’ pretty fast when they hit you, huh.” I asked them to chew on how the mayor threw them under the bus and then distanced herself from their actions, after she told them it was all right to fire on protesters. And then, after they wounded Scott Olsen, she said they’d acted on their own. She told the media that she was out of town at the time (which was true) and unaware that her police department might resort to aggressive tactics and chemical agents to disperse the crowd (which was not true). It was later determined that the OPD acted on her direct orders, and had not, in fact, gone all rogue on the Occupy demonstrators. I tried to make the point that they, too, were getting a raw deal, and asked them to understand that we weren’t just out for kicks. We were assembled there because we hoped to make things better for all of us, including them.
At that point I began to sense the guys’ attentions waning and impatience setting in, so I tried a new tack and asked the dark, muscular cop who seemed to be in charge, if he’d consider not harming us if everyone agreed to sit down and be silent. He looked at me scornfully through his shield, but, to his credit, didn’t outright reject the plan, saying, “Yeah, right, that’s gonna work.” I told him I thought it just might, and instantly ran back toward the group before he had a chance to stop me. “Sit down! Sit down!” I shouted. Then I put my finger to my lips and motioned, “Shhhhhhhhh! Everybody, please just sit down and they won’t fire at us.” I hoped that I was right about that. Many didn’t sit down, but, thankfully, over half of them did. Lots of them sat with peace signs extended, and almost everyone ceased talking. The contrast in behavior was wholly impressive and I hoped it would be enough to satisfy the army of police in front of us and get them to turn around and head out, which would leave us free to do the same.
I ran back to the squad that had since closed in and decreased the distance between us to only twenty yards. I positioned myself directly opposite the guy who seemed to be in charge. “Okay, so … lots of us are sitting down and we’re all quiet and peaceful. Can we just call it good and you guys go home now?”
“Hey, you seem like a nice lady, j
ust get out of here and don’t get yourself hurt tonight,” he replied. And, with that, he pushed past me, and signalled to the whole row to move forward, which they did—nightsticks raised. Upon seeing the police charge, the last of the remaining Black Bloc troupe bolted and ran into the shadows, leaving the rest of us, who were seated, to pay for their deeds. The explosive surge of uniformed gunmen rattled us into paralysis, as we closed our eyes and flinched in expectation.
I had come here to Oakland to witness history, to be a part of a peaceful revolution—a social media facilitated groundswell, populated by other frustrated, hopeful, determined people who, like me, aimed to demand and create the America we wanted to live in. So then, why was I, all of a sudden, sitting in a tense standoff with all these pissed off, armed to the teeth, cranky cops, who looked as if they’d like nothing more than to separate my head from my neck? Furthermore, why was a sloppy, wasted chick sitting inches away from me, sounding like she’d only come out to the revolution because she heard there was going to be free booze? God, we were just about to be slaughtered by a bunch of hopped up automatons, and here she was, rambling on and on about some of the dumbest shit I’d ever heard. After they pushed me aside, the cops had applied the brakes and stopped on a dime a few feet in front of us. They dug in and planted themselves, as if someone had just yelled, “Simon says stop!” It was creepy to see how stiffly they could stand—completely immobile—eyes cold and dead, not saying or doing anything. I shot a sideways glance at the sodden goddess, and wondered who the hell had invited her to our party.