The Bluestone Theory

So I found my sweaters. All stacked neatly in the old futon covered by an egg shell that I slept on for a month when I left Student Services and 20th Street.

Joe, my old roommate (along with Jill, Jewel, Jal and June), notified me that he believed a stray Havaiana and a Norelco charger were left in a pile at my old apartment. He was right and I had been confused about those missing items because I hadn't shaved since I moved, hahaha.

I finally dropped by the apartment to hang with Joe, we rambled about our lives before we went into my old room. I grabbed my belongings and he asked if, opening the futon, whether these  Trader Joe's and Census 2010 bags Full of illegible notebooks were mine. "Oh yeah!" I said in a mix of excitement and shame. I collected them, slinging them all on my shoulders and he asked, "hey, and this sweater, is it yours?"

"What sweater?"

"Actually, all of these sweaters," pulling out three stacks.

"Oh, my god." I laughed. I laughed and cursed and danced. I hadn't lost anything, I simply shoved a quarter of my belongings into a futon and walked away.

It was joyous. We drank a beer and ate Alligator pizza to celebrate.

My parents, Saints that they are, have been sending me sweaters in the mail and handed me five more when I went home for Thanksgiving. I was thankful (I'm wearing the cerulean one now!), but these old sweaters are gifts, memories, and had once defined me, like my ironic t-shirts in middle school, or bandanas and jokey sweatshirts in high school. I had recovered some pieces of myself.

(And I think I'm not materialistic!)

Today, I'm overwhelmed with sweaters and suit jackets and loans and transcriptions. 

****

Taylor had a percussion teacher in high school named Joel Bluestone. Taylor always had such great things to say about Joel, and I was always happy to hear them, and not just because of his great name. I actually saw Joel play once at POP PDX and his band was fascinating and groovy. He was a cool guy but when Taylor left Oregon, he did so gladly, with need of a new perspective in life and in percussion. 

Taylor moved back to go to PSU a couple years after and I asked him who he would take for lessons, and he said "Joel, probably."

"But you left. You went beyond his lessons, I thought."

~ "No, I left because I needed a different perspective to grow. He still has more to teach, of course."

And it made sense, eventually. Joel wasn't a teacher just for his youth, but a skilled, open teacher with much to offer. It was easier to see what else he offered after he left and experienced other perspectives.

I'm thinking about that a lot, lately. I'm thinking about that with a lot of things. 

Eric Garner Protest - December 3rd, 2014

A block away from my office is Times Square and when I read the cop who choked and killed Eric Garner had not been indicted in Staten Island and that a protest would be gearing up in Staten Island. I went to the protest, sort of. I more so gawked and the protest and steeled myself against some pretty heavy emotions. It was a very jarring experience. I've been part of some protests before, many of them when I was a kid, but the emotions were so raw from this case, and so personal for so many New Yorkers, that there was an odd flurry of emotion in the air.

It's a week and change after the protest, but I wanted to share what my (mostly) unedited thoughts were at that moment, and in the moments after when I walked alongside a mob of police officers, and then at the same protest at a different location. Here it is:

"How do you spell racist?!"
"NYPD!"

I feel nauseated and silent. I don't need to speak when the people are speaking. I'll speak low even though this is a space for yelling. But this shit is sickening.

[This protest is] surprisingly joyous. Joy is the wrong word, but protests have an energy about them. Excited. There are possibilities and an openness about politics. Direct engagement but also a social activity

"This is what democracy looks like!" "This is what democracy looks like!"

They decided not to indict the police officer that chocked and held Eric Garner off the ground. A Supreme Court in Staten Island. A jury of his peers [?] decided that no crime was committed. In just a few days after the Michael Brown Indictment, a jury decided that no crime was committed when a man was held above ground by a baton and wheezed until he died

"I can't breathe! I can't breathe!"

I started tearing when I heard that chant. There was no joy in that chant. That is the last words of Eric Garner and  the chant carried more weight. I couldn't hear it from the distance as the mobile protest joined with those standing and idly yelling. Walking and closing streets and throwing rocks and burning cars, that feels like a protest, feels like a movement. A civil chanting feels like nothing. It's cold and we're huddled.

Worse yet, we're surrounded, the protest is surrounded by the police. We have an armed guard in case we get out of hand. There are always swarms of police officers in Times Square and they seem just as routine.  We won't harm them but if we threaten them, they have an authorization to kill.

"NYPD!"
"KKK!"
"NYPD!"
"KKK!"

This circumstance, this instance was determined as not a crime, as lawful. The officer will likely resign, and likely work for a subcontractor or one of the dozens of security firms in the city. What's frustrating for me and for many is that this instance was authorized by the decision, and the whole system of regular, unwarranted stopping, frisking, incarceration, and killing of people of color is left unquestioned in the courts.

It cannot be Fought in the courts. Out here today, in Ferguson, in LA, in Portland, the hundreds and thousands of people are gathering to say that it may be authorized but it is not just. Though The streets of Times Square, of union square, of washington square, like the tents in Tahrir or in Taksim, are not exactly analogous to the court of public opinion. We disagree but do they?

"THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!"
"THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE!"

I stepped out of the protest, mostly silent and gawking rather than participating, to see it from outside. The news crawl above the people was from ABC and read "BLACK-ISH after MODERN FAMILY." I thought that was poignant so I drew out my phone to take a picture and it flashed out and was replaced with "Police Officer feels 'Very Bad' about Eric Garner Choke Hold." I snapped a couple pictures of that and put my phone away when it flashed again. It was an advertisement for, I kid you not,

"HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER"

I know it felt like something to be in the crowd and yelling, but I don't know what direct action does anymore. This keeps happening. More kids keep being shot down by not just Eric Zimmermans but police officers, sworn to literally protect. How is every black person a threat to protect against? When does this become presidential action? When does congress start agreeing? There are people on the streets. As much as you can brand them all anarchists and homeless and violent (even if they are), they're still missing work, missing school to come down and protest.

"BLACK LIVES MATTER!"
"BLACK LIVES MATTER!"

When does this come to a head?


********

I'm walking south on 6th avenue to meet my friends in the east village. Police cars and vans full of cadets are weaving in and out of  traffic , all with their lights on, sirens on. I walked away from the start of the protest. It looks like it just got heated.

"HANDS UP!"

"DON'T SHOOT!"

Now all the unmarked crown royals and fords packed with officers are heading to Times Square. I just passed a police car dropping off a well-dressed white couple looking like they're starting their night out, and the man gives his a ride a "Thanks, Gentleman."

"When the system doesn't work?"

 "Shut it down!" 

I hope no civilians get killed tonight 

[I'm] Walking in a mass of cops [along Broadway and 6th avenue. The cops are rowdy, some nervous and some upbeat.]

Roving bands.

Telling jokes about the protests 

Stepping on banners of "everywhere is ferguson"

NYPD is multiracial, multicultural and yet they cannot speak the language of the protest. Even if the cops agree, they cannot agree. There was a secret hand gesture the cops would give if they secretly agreed with the politics of the [Occupy] protest but people are still being killed, secret solidarity or no.

The police are people and they are sometimes people who kill other people.

[I walk with the cops for some 10 blocks, sometimes in the bike lane, away from their prowl, sometimes in the middle of the 25 officers, like a VIP

Which laws are ignored in a riot? 

In Union square, the standing man from Istanbul has been renewed. Radical politics shares a language. About 60 People  are standing with their hands up silently. A sign reads, "I know you're scared but you should ask us why we're scared too!"

Don't make me a target 

But I won't be. I'm not even on a list

This is my kind of protest. Denying the violence out of fear for myself and fear of retribution. It was silent, more and more people gathering when one man yelled "Hands up!" And three, four people responded "Don't shoot!" Hands up, don't shoot, and then everyone was yelling it. Five minutes? 

One woman yelled "I can't breathe" and the shouts and hands subsided into "I can't breathe! " and "Don't choke"

And back and forth

"hands up!"

"don't shoot!"

"Hands up!"

"Don't shoot!"

I'm in the crowd; my arms are shaking

The other side of union square, people are shopping for Christmas trinkets in the bazaar

hands up, 

Don't shoot 

Hands up, 

Don't shoot

Hands up,

don't shoot.