Race Relations in the Heat of the Miami Protests

Postscript: One Activist‚s Perspective on

RACE RELATIONS IN THE HEAT OF THE MIAMI PROTESTS

The neighborhood closest to the main action was an African-American
ghetto, blasted and impoverished. Not everyone there was thrilled to
have us around at first; walking and riding around Overtown before the
demonstrations, we sometimes heard locals shout out taunts to the effect of "let's here it for free trade!" This didn't seem to be an expression
of political or economic principles, but rather of resentment against
the predominantly white outsiders who were invading their space it
probably hasn't boded well in the past when a bunch of white folks
showed up in Overtown.

All the same, considering what we learned later about the misinformation
the police had spread there, the locals were really patient with us in
the days leading up to the action. After all the chaos was all over and
we had made some friends in the area, an older man wearing a black power t-shirt confided in us that the police had put the word around Overtown in advance that people there were encouraged to rob and beat up activists not only would the police turn a blind eye, but it might even
improve their relations with the community. Our friend explained that no
one there trusted the police, or followed their instructions. All the
same, given the bad impression of white folks in general that it's safe
to suppose many in Overtown have, they were generous not to take
advantage of the opportunity to try to redistribute a little wealth.

Encouraging locals to assault activists was not the only way our enemies rolled out the red carpet for us. The first time I walked through
Overtown, I was approached by a small crowd of children who asked me how much I was getting paid. This was perplexing to me. I answered that as I had been unemployed since 1994, I wasn't getting paid anything. They persisted in asking the question, until I finally answered that the last time I was getting paid, I‚d been getting five dollars an hour, under
the table. Satisfied, they went away; but I heard this question over and
over, and I soon figured out what it meant: the rumor had been spread
thoroughly that we protesters were being paid to protest. For folks who
live in dire poverty and have to deal with police harassment constantly,
it would make sense to conclude that white folks who presumably have an easier time getting work and wouldn‚t otherwise be on the receiving end of so much police attention must be doing it for some financial
incentive; but the rumor was so widely disseminated that it couldn't
have just been a hypothesis somebody came up with. In my opinion, it
must have been spread in advance as disinformation. It certainly made us look less like crusaders for global justice and potential allies in the
struggle, that at first everyone who saw us thought we were there
gentrifying their neighborhood on salary.

All these strikes against us notwithstanding, the attitudes of Overtown
residents towards us changed dramatically as soon as we were in open
conflict with the police. As we retreated into Overtown ahead of the
police onslaught Thursday afternoon, everyone we passed cheered us
on most people had come out onto the street to see what was going on,
and now that they saw we shared a common enemy with them, one who was attacking us as if we were a real threat, they embraced us as friends. Several people I briefly spoke with encouraged us to step up our level of confrontation with the police; the implications were that if we could escalate the conflict, they would join in. That makes sense though they have every reason to revolt, people who suffer poverty and constant
police repression already are not going to engage in an uprising unless
it looks like it is going to work. For a moment that afternoon, I could
imagine what would happen if we somehow were able to hold our ground
against the police and create a space for the residents of Overtown to
join in. That happened in Quebec˜I remember a local throwing a snowball
at the riot police there a couple hours before all the locals joined in
showering the cops with projectiles, just as a man in Overtown was seen
throwing a football at the pigs in his neighborhood that afternoon˜it
can happen anywhere people are angry, if resistance can reach critical mass.

Unfortunately, we were fleeing in disarray and desperation from the most
militarized police force North America has ever seen, in no condition
for touching off the sequel to the L.A. riots of 1992. The most we could
hope for was to get out of the situation without concussions or
handcuffing scars. Before we‚d arrived at the inhabited areas of
Overtown, we‚d been pulling dumpsters and other obstacles into the
street to slow the police advance; encouraged by the support we were
receiving, we decided to ask around how people on the street felt about
us doing that there. Everyone said they felt fine about it; two of us
began pushing another dumpster into the middle of the road.

At that point, out of nowhere, a large black man wearing a jacket with
an American flag on the back came charging up at us, screaming and
waving a two by four. I managed to get between him and my friends and
defuse things enough for all of us to get away with only superficial
injuries, but the important thing was that we had miscalculated our
place in the situation. Looking around at the people who had just given
us the go-ahead, I saw them shaking their heads at the guy who was
attacking us, but also withdrawing some of their unconditional
permission for us to be there fighting the police now that it was
causing internal strife in their community.

That experience was a reminder that although folks who are really
suffering under capitalism don‚t have reason to trust us as allies until
we are actively challenging its power, we also have to be careful in the
process not to make things any more difficult for them than they are.
They didn't mind the police chasing us into their neighborhood, by and
large the police were going to be there anyway, and it was a relief that
they were there pursuing white folks for once, rather than locals; but
when our interactions with them resulted in drama among the residents,
that was a problem. It also drove home the point that you can't consider
the opinions of any demographic in one bloc; everyone we'd talked to was in favor of us making barricades, but that didn't mean "the people of
Overtown" were in favor of it, it just meant certain ones were. Whenever
people of one background try to consider the perspectives of people from
another especially when white activists do so, I'm afraid it is all too
easy to summarize and oversimplify.

That episode passed quickly, but by then we were surrounded by police on all the streets around us. We ran down an alley, only to see with dismay that they had closed off the street ahead of us too. In a matter of
seconds, a full line of police cars blocked every street around us from
corner to corner, and police on foot were arresting every activist in
range. We hunkered down in the alley, trying quixotically to hide
between the scattered weeds at the foot of a chain-link fence, a
veritable lightshow of blue and red reflecting off the brick wall facing
us. A helicopter swooped low overhead. It seemed it was all over.

At this moment, just as we were trying most desperately to will
ourselves invisible, a couple local kids came into the alley and walked
up to us, hands in their sweatshirt pockets as if they were pretending
to hold guns with which to rob us. They quickly abandoned this
half-hearted charade, however, and started asking us questions about
what we were doing. At first, of course, we had to explain that we
weren‚t being paid to protest something that I'm sure was becoming
clearer by the second anyway. Then we explained succinctly, and not
without a little impatience lest our new friends‚ presence attract the
attention of our riot-armored foes what we were doing there, and asked
their advice as to how we could extricate ourselves from the situation.
There wasn't much they could tell us being completely surrounded in
foreign territory by thousands of armored police whose specific goal is
to beat and incarcerate you is a toughie however you look at it.
Eventually they wished us luck and moved on.

We spent a tense hour and a half in that alley, waiting for the sun to
go down and the police lines to break up so we could make a dash for
safety. Long after darkness had fallen, the lights were still flashing
all around us, and police still marching past both mouths of the alley,
and the helicopter was still overhead, now scanning the alley with its
spotlight. Those were some tense minutes for all of us except the member of our party who had spent an entire sleepless week volunteering at the convergence center, who actually took advantage of the situation to nod off for a while! The only explanation I can come up with for why they never came into the alley to arrest us is that, for the whole duration of the protests, the police never moved in groups of fewer than thirty, and in that "dangerous" neighborhood they feared to break up their numbers to pick off stragglers. I recount this story here in case it may be useful to others trying to escape under similar circumstances one day--heaven help us, such circumstances are getting more and more common.

Finally the police forces moved on, and we made our way out onto the
street two at a time, without any incriminating material, in the cutest
boy-girl couples we were able to throw together (these work for getting
through police lines, I swear: hold hands, look deep into each other's
eyes a lot, focus on seeming harmless--earlier that day a companion and I had penetrated the police defenses as far as the front door of the hotel
hosting the ministerial, thanks to our lovebirds masquerade). There we
found locals waiting to guide us to safety, freely telling us where the
police lines were now and offering to lead us down the safest routes.
Trapped inside police lines, fearing almost for our lives, nothing could
have been sweeter mercy than this. Thanks in no small part to their
help; we arrived back safe at the convergence center an hour later,
grateful to be free and alive.

Our guides, of course, inquired if we had any money, and we penniless
anti-capitalists scrounged in our pockets to see if there was any
leftover subway change to share. I emphasized to one of them that there
was no price that could be placed on such assistance, and she let me
know she would have done it for free, needless to say, as she wanted the same things we wanted. All the same, the situation basically paying a native guide to lead us out of a dangerous situation, as if we were in
wartime Morocco or something was a reminder of how much economic
inequality there still is even between people on the outside of the
capitalist system. What I'd give to live to see a day when the means she
has access to and the means I have access to are no different, to never
have to wonder again to what extent I'm being regarded as a potential
source of income rather than a fellow human being!

That‚s what we‚re fighting for, when we contest our enemies‚ free trade
conventions and economic power in general. Next time we need to make it clearer to locals in advance what we‚re trying to do, so we won‚t have
quite as much misinformation and misunderstandings to cut through to
find common ground. If we can get a full-scale anarchist insurrection
going in any city in this empire, there are millions who will join in,
who need it even worse than we do but we have to work towards this
conscientiously, with an acute awareness of the challenges other
communities face, and in constant dialogue as to what our role in the
larger struggle should be.

I'll conclude with the letter some friends distributed in Overtown after
the demonstrations were over. Good for them. Let's see more of that!

An open letter to the residents of Overtown from some F.T.A.A. protestors:

Thank You Very Much!

Over the last week there were times when anti-F.T.A.A. protestors were
pushed into Overtown by the police. We want people to know:

1) We had no intention to bring any heat into your neighborhood. In
fact, many of us talked about the need to not do that.

2) We very much appreciate all the help and moral support we received
from hundreds of residents.

3) We understand that the police brutality we experienced is just a
small slice of what poor people of color deal with everyday. We
recognize this system is racist. We are dedicated to smashing racism and the system behind it.

4) We oppose the F.T.A.A. because it is an attempt by the rich to exert
even more control over all of our lives. It is also the continuation of
the colonial relationships that have been enslaving, killing and
stealing land for over 500 years.

5) We know there are a lot more problems than the F.T.A.A. We are
against the entire greedy corporate-military-police-war machine that
oppresses life. We are for community empowerment, self-determination,
justice and total liberation. ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!