Dancing to the Port- Boston Review
I was one of the thousands of protestors who joined Oakland’s November 2 general strike and marched to the Port of Oakland, the nation’s fifth largest, to shut it down. I believe in protesting government policies that have widened the gap between the rich and everyone else. Yet I had deep reservations; I doubted that a leaderless movement could pull off something this logistically complex.
What I saw changed my mind. Even though there was no one named leader, participants emerged to keep the demonstrations focused, calm, and non-violent. There were no police visible on the streets for the ten hours I was there, but the crowds found their own ways to maintain order. (Violence broke out very late at night after most people had gone home.)
The first significant action I saw that day occurred around noon in front of the Chase branch at 20th and Franklin streets. A family whose home Chase had foreclosed set up their living room in the intersection. There was a well-worn area rug, a spent sofa with a side table, and a battered lamp.
“I have been a Chase customer for many years,” said Brenda Reed, a homeowner who has lived in Rockridge, one of Oakland’s better neighborhoods, for 38 years. “The bank is going to foreclose on my house on Thanksgiving week. I’m not leaving. They robo-signed our loans. They sold us predatory mortgages. They took a $16 trillion bailout with our money, then refused to modify our loans.”
Everyone was then urged to take out their cell phones and call California Attorney General Kamala Harris and Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. I wasn’t sure how calling Jamie Dimon’s assistant was going to help Ms. Reed, but the crowd enjoyed the gesture. Besides, the crowd had shut down the Chase branch for the day.
In front of Chase a group of Buddhists was handing out money to protestors. Max Airborne, a woman who wore a colorful muumuu and was seated in a wheelchair, held a thick wad of dollar bills and gave them to whoever was willing to take one. “Giving money away is hard,” she said. “Most people don’t want to engage.” Still, she said she’d managed to palm off about $200 in the hour and a half she’d been there.
The bank protest, which started at about 400 strong but increased in size and emotional intensity, then marched a few blocks east to shut down Bank of America. The branch was on the ground level of a skyscraper and had floor-to-ceiling windows that offered a clear view of the tellers inside. As the crowd pressed forward, some in the front started pounding on the windows. The glass starting to undulate in big waves, and I became terrified that it would shatter, slicing the demonstrators and causing a riot. But monitors from the Service Employees International Union, who wore brightly colored fluorescent vests to distinguish them from the crowd, stepped in between the demonstrators and the windows to diffuse the situation.
The more the power of the protestors grows, the less wary they are of political engagement.