Improptu

By tomorrow, I’ll have made it to 7 protest gatherings in Chicago over the last 7 days. Some planned and organized, others, forms of emergency action in response to dramatic shifts in policy making and saber rattling in Washington. In less than half a day, a large national protest under the name NO KINGS will begin bringing out millions onto the streets of the United States.

In a sheer demonstration of the will of the people, community organizers, activist, political, religious leaders, people from all facets of civil society are pushing into the streets en masse. You may have seen my May Day coverage, but I mentioned it felt as though the movement lacked clarity, which may been true. Today, that is not the case. There is a specific focus on ICE and the way immigration policy is being applied. Last week, you saw 6-7 direct confrontations with ICE. Most fizzled out, but not Los Angeles. The situation in Los Angeles became moderately chaotic in limited areas but it sparked a reaction from Washington. Washington then decided to deploy the National Guard and Marines, unprecedented action, against the will of the Governor of California and Mayor of Los Angles, which kicked off an intense week of emergency action.

in Chicago, Tuesday was the night that thousands would rush into the streets. My colleague Taha would film the first two hours of the protest from 5:30-7:30 for which you can see a lot of that footage spread out on my social media. At around 8:00pm I would arrive to the Daley Plaza, looking for if people were still gathered. To my suprise, I ran into a march of about 1500-2000 people which was moving faster than normal. I thought, hmmm, what’s going on? Come to find out, it had no police escort or traffic control. Later, I would also learn it was one of maybe two or three collectives in the Loop still marching. I followed this group all the way to the Federal building, where it would end up pushing past a ad-hoc police barricade. It turned it somewhat of a block party but the speeches were intense and the key phrase that defined the evening was “FUCK ICE.”

I decided I would head out for the evening but on my way back to Streeterville, there was a large police response where tens or maybe hundreds of police cars and police bikes were responding to a scene. I don’t know exactly what happened but when I arrived there were a few protestors who had gotten into at the moment an arrest was taking place. I heard there were maybe 16-18 arrest in Chicago, but each comes with its own challenges. When the law enforcement goes to do an arrest within a large crowd, their movement reshapes the entire crowd dynamic, and it has a lot of velocity so when tensions flare, they flare for real.

The law enforcement formed two separate kettles, which are basically law enforcement formations, that are either square or circular, designed to contain parts of the crowd to isolate incidents or simplify their operations for additional arrests. I was able to step outside of the kettle, luckily, as they can be very dangerous for those who get caught in one. Some agencies will deploy smoke in the kettle, pepper spray, shoot rubber bullets or use other mechanisms for crowd control they call “less-lethal munitions.”

Nonetheless, I stuck around and I saw a scene of very high stress and high emotions.

Tuesday would be the height of tension in Chicago for the week. Another emergency action was scheduled for Thursday but this would be much more coordinated, planned and organized. Tuesday may have brought out about 8,000 people. Thursday was closer to 2,000 or so. But the sentiment was uplifting and positive. There was a lot of excitement in the air. The march route was really beautiful. The march started at 4pm and made its way down Michigan, turned down Wacker past the Trump tower and then over to State Streer before heading back to the main organizing spot at Ida B Wells and Michigan.

It’s hard to explain - the physical nature of protests, of marching, of political dissent, contrasted with the chants, speeches, percussion of drums, sirens, honks, all of the on lookers, the mobile devices, the echoes of the speakers off of every single building within 2-3 blocks. It gives me a rush.

I told everyone, that Trump has a tendency to speak too directly to the opposition, to trigger strong emotions, border lining incitement, and sometimes calling for actual violence. When he does this, it ripples through human minds and bodies. He inspired more collective action against him, he strengthened the opposition, he galvanized the opposition when he sent our military into Los Angeles.

So I expect to see the momentum of the organizing, the surge in protest capacity, and mobilization patterns to continue through the summer and continue on the upslope of more frequent, large protests as time passes.

ICE raids and immigration courts are still flash points for tensions to flare.

in the background of everything, Israel has now expanded its war into Iran. I am not certain of how the movement is going to handle this. As the movement has become more and more focused on Trump, on immigration policy, on ICE it has taken on some nationalistic tendencies. I have heard critiques from a number of long time activists and top organizers that 50501 and Indivisible, the key organizers for NO KINGS have had a hard time integration matters of foreign policy, or should I say, Palestinian liberation into their policy aims. I will report back on if this has evolved from NO KINGS in April to the event later today.

Some thoughts I have for the left: like you, I have listened to many of the top radical thinkers from Africa, Europe, the United States, etc. hundreds of hours of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, etc. I have studied the social movements, their rhetorical schemes, the ground realities and the forces that shape policy discourse and policy making. Typically, the left uses hope to tie together its plight of struggle and resistance and the right uses fear but for the last 8-10 years, the left and right are using fear. Left, I am hoping you could get back to hope and don’t forget your policy.

So, sure “FUCK ICE” is compelling but reach will be limited and it’s hard to publish in the mainstream. Also, could you end that with something uplifting for the people to help with everyone’s mental health and to mitigate some of the burnout that many are experiencing. And please, tie it together with a policy. Reverend Martin Luther King, on the worst days, after the fire hoses, the guns, the dogs were deployed, came back to the microphone, centered himself, and stated the policy. We are lucky to have him in the canon because he demonstrates how to stabilize your movement in the most trying of times, not to mention his distinct contributions to non-violence. He is still someone we can all look to for basic structure of dissent. You need to reflect on the society and its vastness in your speeches. Even if you reject the Europeans and their church, you cite most of European and American political philosophy at the rally’s. Those citations are still largely reactions to the European canon of classical literature and scholarship. Even Marx was European so it is hard to avoid.

Point being, the movement is going to need to persist, safely, from a position of strength, against what is slowly becoming a militaristic, autocratic, dictatorship.

Anyways, these are just some of my unstructured thoughts on the current moment.

I’ll update you all tomorrow.

If you don’t already, follower me on Twitter, instagram, threads, and TikTok. My engagement has been through the roof and a lot of my real time protest coverage gets posted there. We are currently in New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. and there is a lot happening right now so stay tuned.