e pluribus unum

FROM April 25, 2004

My Saturday plans did not include facing down five squad cars, heavy with cops in the exoskeletons of riot gear. There was no reason for 2:1 officer-protester ratio. The Police Accountability March was peaceful; its leaders shouted as much, through megaphones, for an hour beforehand. And yet, there were more officers than teachers in schools. The bike force, queued like bees in yellow uniforms, ushered our path, barred us from jaywalking; batons jutted from their spokes, for silencing emotion should it gather more breadth than permitted. A crusty-punkish, dreadlocked fellow was arrested for crossing incorrectly; according to his friends, he has been arrested for similar infractions at every single protest over the past year. A foot off the sidewalk on a flashing hand will land you a $239 ticket and a night in the pokey. God Bless Portland.

We were protesting the violent and unjustified murder of an unarmed motorist, by a police officer, at a routine traffic stop. We were trailed by paddy wagons, escorted by cops on horses, paraded by ominous trucks of tasers and pepper spray. I felt solemn.
The protests in which I participate—which, to be honest, hasn't been since the intial Iraq War protests—are always about lives. Individual people. And so it's a curious line to toe—feeling solid anger at a unified "police" as representative of "the failed system"—but understanding that the notion of a reductive faceless mass is what leads to racial profiling, and what lead to these murders. It takes effort to humanize a man wearing a Darth Vader uniform. An older woman, denim-clad, held a sign—"Justice: Police Accountability"—and spoke directly to the officers: you can work from the inside, you can make real change, you can do what is right. When we stopped our march in front of Mayor Katz's house, the yellow bike cops swarmed around us. It is grounding, knowing you're doing something out of hope and idealism, but staring down the evidence that you are considered a threat. My throat got lumpy, my face flush with the force of hundreds and high tensions. But one bike cop asked, in a kind voice, "Are you going to the inquest?" I felt as though he would have patted me on the back.

Then we had a house party, with DJs—Chris Funk, Fremont Slim, Seoul Brother #1. You can imagine: they played Pete Rock. And Nu Shooz, "I Can't Wait," to shout out Portland. (You thought the Stoudamires were our only good natives?) And I saw Eternal Sunshine—miles better than Human Nature—and Gondry is biting himself, I think, or Kaufman is biting Gondry, because thematically, Eternal Sunshine is the exact concept as Bjork's "Bachelorette" video. Trains, love never lost, forward motion into the dark halls of repetition, blank slates. Maybe not biting; just elucidating. For that, I promise Gondry now I will always love being alive.