Left Behind by the Revolution (in Berkeley), Part II
I tried and failed to join the Revolution again tonight, lol. (First fail here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025926747)
This post is not a criticism of the protests in Berkeley: it is just some musing on how I may be too old to relate to them, with a little bit of laughing at myself. I do support the protests and the mojo I believe they bring back to Berkeley as a special place.
Tonight I was avidly following the protest Twitter feed when I saw that the Occupy wing (less destructive) was sweeping my way. It was also being noted as small (around 100 protesters), and they were calling for more to join. I thought about the vectors in my head, and I thought if I just cut across some streets going South-East, I could meet up with them. The helicopters seemed to be directly overhead - the theory seemed good. But the practice failed. I got up to Shattuck, and the helicopters were ahead of me. I couldn't catch up.
After chasing the helicopters for a few blocks, I got on the #18 bus, and I attempted to catch up that way. After a few blocks, the bus driver declared she "saw protesters" and dumped us all out in a strange part of Oakland. There were a few student-looking people heading South, and I could see where traffic was held up several blocks ahead. Again, the helicopters were my guiding stars - I kept following them, and occasional news trucks, and once in a while I came across a student carrying a sign. I knew I was going in the right direction, but again I just couldn't catch up.
I made it to the MacArthur Bart and was devastated that the protesters had not stopped there. Why hadn't they decided to take over the Bart station or something to wait for me?! There I got on the #1 bus: and again I was dumped around 30th street on account of protesters directly ahead. I walked as fast as I could. Again I could see students and skateboarders streaming around, again I could see delinquent news trucks. Again I couldn't catch up.
Finally I made it to Frank Ogawa Plaza. It was around 11:30 at night. No protesters there either. The helicopters which I had continued to follow the whole time (I don't have a cellphone, so I couldn't track the protest movements that way to try to cut ahead of it again) had moved off to some unknown part of Oakland. It was time to give up.
Of course BART was closed on account of the "civil unrest" which was nowhere to be seen. I waited awhile for the bus. Some students eventually drifted by and mentioned they didn't think the bus would stop there. We hiked up to the 19th street BART. I made it back home around midnight. Whew.
First, I would like to observe that the Berkeley-Oakland Protests move very, very fast. This is probably a feature, not a bug. I'm not sure whether it's to evade the police or to exhibit the exuberance of youth, but they practically run place to place, and leave very long streaming trails of slower protesters in their wake.
This may also have something to do with using social media and relying on its agility to organize the protest. This is part of what excluded me since I don't have a cellphone, but all along my route, I saw people constantly checking their cellphones for information.
There was an up side to being an extremely slow, mobility impaired walker. I listened to and observed a lot a long the way. I listened to young protesters quote Rosa Parks and discuss their suspicions of plain clothes policemen planted amongst the protesters. Around 20 minutes later, I passed a man in plain clothes who was reporting on his phone that "they all seem to be going in the same direction" - he kind of sounded like a police informer! I listened to some guys outside the bar establish they were getting their news from social media rather than the main stream media as they discussed various theories of the "violent fringe" of the protests. (Yes, everyone was discussing the protests along the way!). I listened to black people discuss how they felt about white students protesting - from ones wishing they could join in to a guy screaming "FUCK THE PROTESTERS!" because the BART station was closed. I felt like I was listening to memories in the making. Possibly myths in the making.
While I was walking, I had plenty of time to think about another way the revolution leaves me behind. When I debate the protests with older friends, they usually check KQED, NPR, the NYT - the traditional "credible sources" - and then poll people in the same age group for "public opinion". Then they come back worrying about Berkeley's reputation. My response to that is they should be more worried about the power of propaganda. The mainstream media tells the stories that we want to hear or that powerful interests want to tell. Sometimes it even responds to the the dictates of political power, or at least the manipulations of savvy PR people. In any case, young people don't trust the mainstream media, and they have good reason not to. They know it's an instrument serving classes that are not their own. So if the mainstream media passes some negative judgment on what they are doing with their protest, do these revolutionary youth give a flying frak? Why should they? It's meaningless to them.
The culture war they seem to be fighting takes place almost exclusively on social media - and that's why it was such a big faux pas when the president of Smith invoked "All Lives Matter": that's a hashtag, and the president of Smith unknowingly took a side in the Twitter wars. The side that opposed "Black Lives Matter".
It kind of gets my goat that the elders of Berkeley - some of whom did "Berkeley in the 60s" and then sold out and got a job - are being such curmudgeons about the Oakland-Berkeley protests. In a world where everything is done "for the children" and we're always sacrificing for "future generations", doesn't it behoove us to at least consider the younger generation might be building something for themselves, and it doesn't matter if they have the permission and approval of their elders? The "future generation" is their generation!
This whole thing kind of reminds me of that annoying meeting I had with a guidance counselor in high school. I had missed getting an A on a make-up exam because there had been no clock in the room and the teacher forgot to give me warning times. When I complained the guidance counselor said I would be more effective if I talked using "I" statements, instead of "you" statements. The teacher came in the room, and I carefully phrased my request using only "I" statements. Both the guidance counselor and the teacher smiled because I behaved as they wished. However, my orderly behavior did not result in getting a reconsideration of my test score!!!
Right now the elders are saying "protesters should do this", "it's not effective to do that", "this is counter-productive", "the protesters aren't making any sense", etc. Well, it seems when the protesters were playing by the ostensible rules, nothing was getting done. That means the rules are not all that effective either - those rules just represent the behavior the elders would prefer. I think, at it's heart, this Oakland-Berkeley protest is about refusing the rules, and calling attention to how they aren't working for certain segments of society. And you can't make that point by nicely following the rules.
So tonight I was left behind by Berkeley's revolution once again. But I hope I still learned something (even though I may be a little too old for it).
