The People Enable Radical Change: from protests to mutual aid

Dec 15

We stormed the West Side Highway the week George Floyd was murdered. Many of us who had not experienced racial discrimination in our lives were shocked that this world had delivered a fate that was so cruel to someone for simply existing. Those who had experienced racial discrimination understanding, as it has been explained to me, that the well where a racist society had dumped their tears had been overflowing for far too long. I marched with my roommate, Brittany, an essential hospital employee who had been risking her health the past few months. That week in late May was traumatic for many people, and in the days before we protested on the highway, Brittany described the concern deep in her heart for her brother, and the discrimination she has faced as a Black woman. I was concerned about the pandemic that crept into our lives, but I also understood that when Brittany told me she would be protesting that she would not be going alone. As we marched through the streets of Harlem earlier that afternoon, our elderly neighbors waved to us from their fire escapes, the places where they watched the protests safely. We walked the highway as a united front, joining the global call to stop the killing of Black lives rather than perpetuating the careless commonality of murder that has been built into the criminal “justice” system in the United States. Many of the drivers who had been stopped in traffic exited their cars to cheer us on or extended their arms from their windows to wave under the hot sun. As we continued down the highway, scattered voices began to warn that the police were coming to arrest protesters. I later found out that the NYPD arrested Keith Boykin, a journalist who had been reporting on our group’s movement. They did not read him his Miranda rights. They zip-tied him and held him in a police bus in the heat, releasing him hours later.

With the help of Black Lives Matter protesters, Brittany and I were able to climb over a fence and escape to safety, but in the weeks and months that followed, many New York City demonstrators and protesters across the country would not be met with the same fate.

Within the next week, Mayor Bill de Blasio would instate a curfew that would allow the NYPD to further brutalize protesters, including a group in the Bronx who were kettled by police officers before the curfew began, some cornered in their own neighborhoods, attacked, and arrested. The NYPD would go on to harass and arrest delivery persons who were doing their essential duties, as named by the city and places of employment. They even used their police vehicles to intimidate and drive into protesters in Brooklyn, an assault that Mayor de Blasio defended.

Brittany described her reasoning for protesting, having experienced discrimination first-hand as a child after moving to a predominantly white suburb. She remembered two incidents that occurred at school where she witnessed white students using racial slurs and bigoted speech, openly and aggressively detailing violence against Black individuals. She recalled that these students were not held accountable. “I protest because I am hoping it is going to make a change and that kids do not have to go through these types of situations. Hopefully by protesting, we can bring re-education of children, family members—I am protesting for others who cannot go to the protest, for those who can’t take time out of their day. We are all in this together.”I asked Brittany how she felt about protesting, and the word she found that best described it was “enlightening”. Brittany explained, “There were so many different types of people who were there, from all different walks of life—signs in different languages protesting that Black Lives Matter, I thought that was pretty powerful. It is a powerful feeling to be walking on a highway, shutting it down, walking through the lanes.”

Tommy, a medic who was on the ground during the New York City curfew and the weeks following George Floyd’s murder, described how people were feeling emboldened in a way that they had never witnessed before: “There were so many given actions occurring at the same time, and these were being organized by different people with different connections with different communities, that there was this confrontational energy that was occurring parallel to one another without any direct coordination.” With anti-police graffiti painted throughout the city, there were very few situations where the NYPD had seized control in the spaces where protests were happening, and quickly, their power was, once again, lost. Tommy describes the force of the protests as “...a floodgate that had been opened that the state didn’t have the immediate capacity to contain.” The NYPD did not know where to focus their attention against the solidarity found in the streets. After one of the marches where Tommy was working as a medic, they and other protesters coordinated rides with essential workers, who had been given waivers by their employers to be out after curfew, to help shuttle people home. The car Tommy was in was stopped twice by NYPD officers while driving from Manhattan to Queens. They explained, “Being out after curfew exemplified the degree to which the NYPD, despite being one of the largest armed forces in the world personnel-wise, was spread to its breaking point. For the United States and New York this was a pretty militant street standard, and showed how difficult it is for a state security force to contain a population when that population is no longer governed by fear of them.” As Tommy described it, the many communities standing up in their own spaces is what made it hard for the NYPD to contain them. An anonymous protester recounts the first few days of the protests in New York City after George Floyd’s murder: “To see people fight back against the cops in the way that they did—to see that work, to see the way they retreated—felt revolutionary.”

Prime, an activist in New York City, described his experience protesting the past few months as both positive and negative, the good resonating from being on the frontline of protests and helping the people in his community feel supported: “Unfortunately, it has been normal for us to be killed and there have been no consequences for the police.” Prime was a part of a group that led a protest action in Times Square where a driver attempted to run over a protester who was on a bike. As the car drove off, the protester’s bike was slammed under the car. Prime explained, “This is why we are protesting . . . because there is so much hatred for Black people embedded in the essence of America.” Prime described his commitment to the Black Lives Matter movement: “I am protesting for myself and for my people, Black people specifically, because we are out here suffering, getting murdered and brutalized.” An anonymous protester mirrored this sentiment: “I think all the protesters at a basic level are responding to the gross injustice of how Black people are treated in this country and this country’s history of exploiting and abusing them for an elite class of white people.”

Kristin Richardson Jordan, a candidate running for New York City Council, who has moved into the streets of Central Harlem with her neighbors to disrupt district 9 with radical love, explained, “I want to see productive change, and I understand that protesting is only part of making that change, but is also an important part of making that change.” She continued, ”It cannot go unnoticed that we have a genocide of my people. The day that no one is protesting will mark the end of our humanity because that would mean this has become acceptable.” Kristin is both protesting for herself, a queer Black woman, understanding that her body is on the line, and for the collective community. She explained that the protesting is a way “...for all of us to get our moral compass and humanity back.” While protesting in New York City, Kristin has found community, family, and other people like herself who are enraged. She recounted, “I have seen four cops on one person. Video footage of police hurting protesters, grabbing people off the streets and throwing someone into a van.” There was a video circulating this summer of NYPD officers pulling a protester from a skateboard and forcibly shoving her into a van. There was a situation in August where NYPD officers surrounded Black Lives Matter protester Derrick Ingram’s home in Hell’s Kitchen unannounced, and without a warrant, to attempt to intimidate him into an arrest—an example of the police department’s unchecked power. Protesters stood in solidarity with him until the officers left.

In June, many protesters in New York City were demanding, similarly to protesters across the country, to defund the police department. Kristin explained, “The recent vote for this budget does not keep us safe in any of the ways that matter. The budget did not properly defund the NYPD, and did not properly fund our education system, our social services, and safety nets.” She has the sentiment of many New York City residents: “In my opinion the current electives are utterly failing in keeping us safe. The things that keep us safe are housing, food, social safety nets, and the things that don’t keep us safe are the police. They are protecting private property and special interests, and do little for me or anyone like me. I’d argue they don’t keep people safe who are privileged.” Kristin explained the radical change that needs to take place to bring real safety into our communities, “We need less cops and more counselors. The police weren’t created to make us safe.” Prime agrees that politicians do not keep New York City residents safe: “It’s very disingenuous to say they defunded the police. It was not serious, they just reallocated funds. As a collective group, the politicians in New York City are working in their own self interest. They are in it for themselves, for their own personal gain and their children’s children.” Prime described local politicians’ commitment to upholding the police department, explaining that “[They] essentially work and influence the police officers. You rarely see a politician denounce a police force, even though you have so many examples of them committing murder. There’s millions of witnesses, and we have seen it on video with social media. George Floyd and Eric Garner. Most do not give back to the community they represent. All they do is take.” An anonymous protester gave explicit reasons for why the local political elite will not challenge the police department: “The main one is the dominant force in New York City politics which is the real estate industry. The real estate industry is not only against defunding, they need police to keep the price of their assets up. This is New York City. This is the heart of global capitalism. The police exist to manage the inequalities that result from that system. It produces misery and disorder and crime.”

I, as a New York City resident, do not think that the police keep us safe, having been turned away from a NYPD precinct after reporting my rape in 2013. The police are forcefully reactionary, appearing after a crime has been committed to handle paperwork and write a report. Harmful New York City laws like “Stop and Frisk” had been introduced to uphold racist policing that led to further normalizing major overcrowding and abuse in Rikers Island. As reported by NYCLU, “At the height of stop-and-frisk in 2011 under the Bloomberg administration, over 685,000 people were stopped. Nearly 9 out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent.”

This summer, many New York City residents, including myself, signed a petition to repeal 50-A, which allowed police misconduct to be kept from public record. There have been cases where police officers' corrupt records have been exposed by this new and demanded transparency. Among these records of police misconduct are 60 complaints, involving 21 separate incidents, against NYPD officer Jerimiah Williams who has been accused of sexually assaulting his victims as he arrests them, as reported by The Intercept.

Brittany believes that Governor Cuomo has done a decent job with the pandemic by taking strict protocols seriously, but also thinks that New York City politicians have failed us with how they have handled helping the homeless population, specifically the children who are trying to attend school in shelters: “Mayor de Blasio made a promise to help all the homeless children in the shelters. They give them iPads for school, but now they are having issues with the WiFi, and they are not going to be able to provide WiFi for all the children in school until next year. We are in a global pandemic, and they can’t even get WiFi in shelters where children are living?” Mayor Bill de Blasio has recently promised to fix this issue and install WiFi in city-run homeless shelters, an initiative that yet remains to be seen.

In New York City, the protests have energized us to organize in other ways that help our local communities in the form of community refrigerators, park clean-ups, clothing donations, and giving our neighbors access to personal equipment to protect them against coronavirus. Comparatively, activists across the country have been organizing for their own communities. Finley, an activist from Massachusetts, helped organize an action to convince state legislatures to give immigrants access to licenses. “Mobility is a human right and in Massachusetts we don’t have public transit. We don’t have a community carpool situation. If you don’t have a license and you don’t drive, you don’t get to go to the hospital. It turns into a life-threatening thing,” he explained. Activists camped outside the Massachusetts Statehouse to demand licenses for immigrants so that they can work and are not put at risk for deportation.

Finley described the real threat of immigrants being pulled over because they are Black or Brown, ultimately leading to their being arrested and put into the United States “deportation machine” because the state would not give them licenses. Finley was also a part of a police defunding action that was successful in slightly defunding the local police in Northampton: “We got 10% defunded. The biggest percentage cut in Massachusetts. We were very strategic. We created a huge ledger, made a manifesto, and were demanding a 50% cut. If we didn’t demand 50%, they would give us less.”

Finley described his and other activists’ persistence in this effort to defund the Northampton police by bringing hundreds of people to demonstrate outside of the houses of every one of their city council members and running campaigns against them. Finley does not feel that his local politicians keep his community safe “…because everyone’s not safe. They keep certain people safe but the people who they keep safe are very loyal to the police and have money. Black and Brown people are not safe. Undocumented community members aren’t safe.” He stressed the importance of organizing: “I’m not interested in protesting without strategy. When there’s a movement around a specific issue and you can get people out it shows community discontent and other community members what is going on.”

In Los Angeles, Kristin Grady, an activist who has been petitioning on Hollywood Boulevard through her performance art initiative A Star for Carrie, described her experiences from this summer as having just run into the protests because they were so extensive: “When I saw these protests, it was happening right where I was and it affected people. People were really emotionally screaming and crying, because this keeps happening . . . and now the guy is out of jail.” Her comment is in regard to Derek Chauvin, George Floyd’s known murderer who has recently been released from jail after his bail was paid.

Kristin described the beginning of the protests in Los Angeles: “People were screaming toward the sun ‘George Floyd Matters.’ You feel this emotion, and you just get drawn into it because it’s easy to feel so powerless. And these people are doing the only thing that makes them feel that they’ve got their power back at least for today. And I couldn’t not be a part of that.” She remarked on the ultimate goal for many of the protesters, “I hear the calls for abolishing the police and maybe it needs to start there because this system has been so corrupted. And this has happened before.” She gave a reminder of Eric Garner, who was ruthlessly murdered by former New York City Police officer Daniel Pantaleo in July 2014: “If someone is selling loose cigarettes, they shouldn’t have to be executed for that, like in a fascist state where the secret police can show up and shoot someone whenever they feel like it. The more we repress racism, the more the racists pop up.”

Kristin compared her experience protesting this summer to her first protest in Washington D.C. at the start of the Bush wars. “9/11 radicalized me, because the war started just a few months after that. And it became so clear what the real priority was there. I saw Susan Sarandon speak. It was enlightening. The D.C. cops were aggressive. I did not see anyone pepper sprayed, but they had been given all these weapons they shouldn’t have. They shouldn’t have aerosol pepper spray. With the Black Lives Matter protests it was either the National Guard or very heavily armed police. It wasn’t just barricades at Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset Boulevard—they had a line of military people with guns.” Kristin recalls the National Guard showing up in Los Angeles before the protests started: “Assault rifles and tanks, like the military. Guys with battle gear with guns lined up on North La Brea Avenue, intersecting with Hollywood Boulevard.” It is appalling to so many of us that the government will fund the military with extensive weaponry to use against the people it has falsely sworn to protect, but will not defund police departments across the country for carelessly murdering individuals who were going about their lives. The federal administration will fund agents of the state to police cities where they are strangers, but chose not to expeditiously send appropriate medical equipment and ventilators to New York City, which had experienced the first major outbreak of coronavirus this past spring, leading to the deaths of thousands. Through these systemic mechanisms and actions of corrupt lawmakers, we recognize where the state’s priorities lie—in quelling the movement of a rightful rebellion, leaving us critics, who do not agree with the government’s simultaneous incapability in helping individuals and families, and purposeful tactics to further marginalize people, to die.

While speaking with Kristin Grady, we discussed the need for mental healthcare in place of punitive systems: “I think all police are over-funded and police are called for reasons that they shouldn’t be.” She continued with her experience with the Beverly Hills Police Department where she witnessed the systemic abuse of homeless people and addicts: “I’ve been arrested for trespassing on a public sidewalk. I felt guilty because I had to go back to court several times. It was ridiculous. I’ll never get those three days back and I had to keep going back to court to defend that. Five different homeless men went through the court system while I was there. These people need mental health help, not jail.” This is similar to Kristin Richardson Jordan’s sentiment that creating a safer society should start with meeting people’s basic needs.

Jonathan Luczycki, an artist who has been painting the scenes at the protests in Portland, Oregon for the past few months, described the violence in his city against Black Lives Matter protesters by both police officers and the white supremacist hate group, the Proud Boys, as the worst he has witnessed. During the last week of October, I spoke to him about what he was witnessing on that particular day. Regarding the Proud Boys he said, “Today in front of the Justice Center, there were maybe twenty or thirty of them.” He described an ongoing protest that happens every Thursday for Patrick Kimmons who was shot and killed by Portland police on September 30th, 2018. “There have been people in the streets the past few months to protest for him every week, to reopen the case, and the Proud Boys have been coming out to intimidate people.”

Similar to how far right protesters have rallied and instigated violence in other cities, including domestic terrorist Kyle Rittenhouse, who murdered two Black Lives Matter protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the Proud Boys have been militant from the beginning: “When I was first painting, at the first big Proud Boy and Trump rally, it was the most chaotic violence I have ever seen. There was more violence coming from the far right side. They were throwing actual CS gas canisters—these are police issued weapons so a lot of the people in that crowd I would imagine are off-duty cops. There are videos on Twitter—everything was documented so well. They all had bear mace. That is not meant to be used on humans at all. My eyes hurt for a month after that happened.” Jonathan voiced his concern not only for the protesters who are being attacked with these chemical weapons, but also for the effect the constant use of tear gas will have on the environment, a concern that has been centered by environmental and civil rights groups. Jonathan described the militant tactics of the Portland police: “They will target women, protesters, and press. It’s gotten worse closer to Election Day. The police will declare a riot before anything happens. One person throws a water bottle. and they’ll declare a riot.”

Not unlike New York City politicians, Jonathan explains that Mayor Ted Wheeler and Governor Kate Brown do not care about the people of Portland. Instead, they prioritize property being destroyed over the safety of the protesters. Although the $230 million Portland police budget was cut by $16 million this past June, Portland City Council had been negotiating to have the police department’s budget to be cut further, an initiative that recently failed. Mayor Ted Wheeler supported not defunding the Portland Police Department. Jonathan claims where the attention should be focused: “The homeless issue has been the worst it has ever been since I have been alive. Over 50% of every arrest in Portland is a homeless person. That money should go to the homeless. It is one of the reasons why I went to City Hall today. People in Portland want the police defunded. They want reform and want this money spent in better ways that benefit the community.” Jonathan talked about the ways the local community in Portland has given back to the protesters—”…giving out free food, taking care of the community, and I have never seen it on such a big level. It has made me feel so proud to be a Portlander.” The community works to fill in the gaps where local politicians and civil servants have failed.

This begs the question: if our currently elected politicians are not giving us what we need, how can we approach finding ways to help our local communities, neighbors, family, and friends? “Building relationships with the people in your immediate community. We see the power of strong communities and mutual aid networks in the aftermath of natural disasters, whether they are hurricanes or natural fires, and these communities will be more resilient once the groundwork has already been laid, and those support networks apply to those disasters that are human born whether they are ICE raids, or food shortages,” Tommy explained. “Developing solidarity in your local neighborhood on your block, and street, and working outward, and creating a patchwork of a multi-faceted network that overlaps as hubs of support that can help each other when people are in need.” An anonymous protester stresses the importance of building relationships: “Organizing to me rests entirely on relationships. . . . Talk to people. You have to listen to them, you have to ask them questions. You have to understand where they’re coming from and really hear them. You have to form relationships with new people. People feel resistance to opening up conversations and those fears are real, but it’s the only way we’re going to change society.” He gives a basis for starting: “Get involved in something that engages you and get more involved. Figure out how you can contribute and try to do one thing well.” Jonathan agrees that it is important to go out to a protest and talk to people: “It can be scary, but just observe. I think if people see the gross abuse of what’s coming from their own government, I think people would get involved.”

Finley explained that mutual aid is extremely important to build a safer society: “If we’re talking about building communities without police, we’re talking about creating communities that care for each other. It’s not charity at all. . . . In order for me to be safe, I need to keep other people safe.” Finley offered concrete ideas for ensuring the safety of community members: “Food distribution, distributing to poor towns in the area. I run a community hotline for people to call if they don’t feel safe that isn’t attached to police or social workers.”

Prime described a need for funding for the people in his community: “We need the money in the hands of the people who live in the community—the boroughs of New York City. We need influence, more men and women of integrity in the political realm. and we need resources for some type of youth empowerment program to keep this momentum going and to keep the liberation of the people going.” He continued, describing the need for giving back to communities who were stolen from: “I am a big proponent of reparations. People who were taken from their homes, and raped and brought to America, were not able to pass on their generational wealth because all they had was their skills. Descendants of American slaves deserve reparations.”

Kristin Richardson Jordan also believes that engaging politically on a local level is extremely important for change. “One organizer recently said the demonstration needs to lead to legislation. We can’t stop protesting, and should protest at the ballot box, and vote for people who are new and drastically different from anything we’ve seen before.” Brittany agrees that it is important to vote locally and described one of the biggest issues we must consider when voting for a local politician: “There needs to be affordable housing or housing that can accommodate the homeless. It’s something that should be continuously done. That’s like the New York City housing lottery. I know there have been articles where the residents of certain buildings want people who have won the housing lottery to come in through the back and side door. I do think they need to focus on people who are lower income or homeless because everyone deserves to have a roof over their heads. When you do something like that it gets them off of the street.”

Kristin Grady thinks it is important to “give your time” and offered a simple way to pass crucial information along: “Share things on social media and see people as human. It’s easy to do that. Understand what these cases are and that you understand your sources.” It is important to stay informed and use that information to help those around you. Jonathan agrees with the importance of staying informed, and noted that many Twitter and Instagram accounts have been formed to give information on the protests in local areas, with links to where to donate to help protesters and medics. He also thinks that, as an artist, it is important to document the protests: “I just try to be out there to paint. Before there was film and media, the artists were capturing these records in a different way. . . . Art is the most powerful weapon against tyrants.” He is “...leaving some bread crumbs...” of what is happening at the Portland protests with oil painting.

The violence against protesters and the rampant police brutality against Black individuals in this country has not stopped. On the night of the decision Louisville lawmakers made to simply charge one of the officers responsible for Breonna Taylor’s murder for wanton endangerment, I was at a protest in midtown Manhattan near Trump Tower. After the lead organizers had finished giving their speeches, the final speaker stressed the need for protesters to avoid instigating police officers due to the violence that had been incited by the NYPD against protesters earlier that week. NYPD officers, including white shirt cops, stormed into the crowd before we left the sidewalk to hold protesters down on the ground.

Marcellis Stinnette, a nineteen-year-old man, was murdered by police in Chicago while sitting in his car in mid-October. His twenty-year-old girlfriend was also shot and injured.

After Philadelphia police officers murdered Walter Wallace Jr., a man who was suffering from a mental health crisis, activists flooded the streets to protest. Philadelphia police officers dragged a family from their car and beat them in the streets as their child watched.

There are countless other incidents we can point to that stress the abusive nature of police forces across this country and their departments’ gutting choice to never hold individual officers accountable. I believe that they are completely aware of how violent their officers are and have not only conditioned them, but continue to encourage them to be this way.

We all have our reasons for protesting that are joined by the greater belief that we need justice for people who have been abused by government systems and police for centuries. Tommy explained the urgency taking place in this national movement: “White supremacy exists, and it is a fundamental component of our society and the foundations of this country, and the only way to defeat it or remove it is to directly confront it. It’s such an intrinsic element to every facet of how our social structure has been organized that it necessitates direct confrontation and deconstruction in all of its myriad manifestations.” When I asked Brittany why she is protesting she said, “It’s not a simple question. I am protesting so I can be a part of what hopefully will be the change that people of different colors, creeds, races, and genders are treated equally.” She then focused on her family: “I also do it because I never met my grandfathers. . . . Regardless of what they went through, they did believe in this country and that everyone was equal, and to keep us from digressing I want to be a part of this movement.” Brittany is protesting for herself, the better treatment of people, and a better world.

An anonymous New York City protester told me: “What is so compelling about this moment in particular is that it confirmed a belief that I have held for years that the Black liberation and anti-racist struggle is at the forefront of the left struggle in general, and all of our struggles for a more just society—whether that’s around environmental, economic redistribution—are all one struggle.” As activists say, marching hand in hand for Black Lives: “We keep us safe.”

CONSIDER FOLLOWING OR GETTING INVOLVED IN A MUTUAL AID OR ACTIVIST ORGANIZATION NEAR YOU.

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Food Not Bombs, The Okra Project, Incarcerated Workers Organizations, Survived and Punished, National Lawyers Guild, Black and Pink, Trans Asylum Seeker Support Network, Cosecha, American Descendents of Slavery