Soup for my Family
The following are my raw notes (edited for grammar and readability) from a protest after the killing of Daunte Wright. It was truly an eye opening event for me that gave me a lot of disillusionment with some peoples form of protest.
The composition here is so interesting. It feels like 97% white anarchists. There are some Black people around but it’s not the majority. There is someone giving a rousing speech on the microphone about the revolution. But this doesn’t feel like the revolution to me. Organized on Instagram, press in attendance. It seems like there are more clout chasers, wanna be anarchists than anything.
On one side of this plaza are some black people doing their thing and playing some music. As they probably do any day of the week. In another part a homeless woman who is preaching the gospel. The energy here feels wrong. I can point out some reasons why it feels that way but I think it’s largely that this doesn’t feel authentic. I feel most people want to just break some shit.
There is a pile of cans of soup on the ground. A reference to someone who made their best attempt to go viral making a joke that it was for their family. A group of friends discuss this and laugh at the joke. How can the revolution be led by someone who identifies themselves and winks to a camera while implying they will do property damage. This same person later tweeted at the daily show. It’s all for clout.
A black man gets on the mic and denounces everything oppression. Talking for long over his time. I don’t think this crowd liked when he said fuck communism. A call of decolonize the mic. This is something else. A share the mic chants start. I don’t think they cared much for another message. I think they just wanted to get on with the riot.
A woman came after and tried to give everything a more wholesome tint. The original man is not having it.
When the March starts. The man takes back the mic and urges a chant of end Black hate. He says fuck Black Lives Matter. I get what he means.
As the March goes on, one of men playing rap yells at the protestors as they go by. He says stay back 6 feet. He is not wearing a mask. He makes a comment about he doesn’t give a fuck about what we are doing. Saying we can leave and go do our riot shit.
Ahead of me a woman walks with two kids on each arm. What is this.
We march down a completely empty street. People take the time to spray paint messages on the wall as someone films.
Two Black women stop people from spray painting from what I assume is their building. Actually they might have just tried to stop a fight from happening between the security guard of the building and those who wanted to paint. I’m not sure. A helicopter goes over my head.
Cars honk as we block the intersection. Unclear if this is solidarity or annoyance.
A man takes a hammer to a parking meter. Another throws an e-scooter over the fence. A moped is in the middle of the street.
People start hitting a man carrying groceries who was walking through the protest and did something they didn’t like. They push him to the ground. I tell them to chill. And pick up his broccoli and mask.
Maybe what’s wrong is that the energy here is not revolutionary enough to make a revolution. But also not uniting enough to change any minds.
Black people are filming the procession as we want by. Like it’s a special event.
A Black man sits in his car. Honking in annoyance as he can’t get to his destination.
I don’t know why. But out of all the stores some broke the windows to Oaklandish. It says local love. I don’t get why.
Someone set a fire in the California bank and trust. A few minutes later a fire truck comes and puts it out.
A Wells Fargo is also busted up as well. As I walk home, a group of Latinx people make preparations to board up the cvs.
This night was something. But it was not the revolution.