Protest is nothing new for our nation’s capital, but Trump lit a fuse

With tear gas and rubber bullets flying, police rampage through a crowd of peaceful protesters so Donald Trump could enjoy a photo-op in front of St. John’s Church. — Getty Images

Whenever there is an uprising in this nation, the first thing people forget is WHY society is boiling over. “I know you people are upset but what does the looting do to help your cause?”

Upset? I’m a 62-year-old black man in America, and I can be hurt, maimed or killed by anyone who doesn’t like my tone! If, as an untrained civilian, I don’t do everything correctly, a highly trained cop can take my life or my freedom for not exhibiting the appropriate amount of deference. Anyone who gets pissed off with me, for any reason, can call the police and change my life and my family forever.

Multiply my fear of the “protectors of society” by that of nearly every black person in America and you may begin to comprehend the constant low-to-high-level stressors that affect us day in day out.

In 2012, we began to assert that Black Lives Matter, and America replied: “No they don’t! All Lives Matter! Now shut the hell up.”

By 2016, some cultural icons of the black community — professional athletes — took a stand by kneeling in silent protest to bring attention to the systemic racism of policing and enforcement of societal “restraint” through violence. But the nation, White America, decided that peacefully protesting police brutality during the National Anthem was an offense akin to treason, and the de facto leader of the protest, Colin Kaepernick, was excommunicated from the United Church of the NFL.

The president of the United States of America demanded that the nation, “Get that sonuvabitch off the field! He’s fired!” And he was.

The president told law enforcement personnel across the nation to “not be so nice” while arresting suspects, to feel free to rough them up. The last 30 days have been an illustration of how the violent policing of black bodies has become de rigueur.

• A guy jogging was cornered and killed by some guys because he could have been a burglar . . . or not. A video of the murder surfaced two months after the fact, and if it hadn’t come out, no one would have paid for that crime.
• An EMT in Louisville, Ky. was killed in a hail of police gunfire at 1 a.m. after cops served a no-knock warrant and broke down the door to her home. It was the wrong apartment.
• A guy bird-watching in Central Park told a woman to leash her dog as per park rules and she called the police and told them she was being attacked by “an Africa American man,” knowing full well she was bringing the full weight of society to bear on a man for the high crime of reminding her she was breaking the leash law.

George Floyd is killed by a Minneapolis police officer who knelt on his neck for 8 minutes and 46 seconds.

Then George Floyd.

Accused of passing a counterfeit $20 bill, he was arrested and then police brutally and callously murdered him in broad daylight, on camera, and thought nothing of it.

That murder was like an unmaintained earthen dam had finally been breached, and the ensuing flood swept away everything in its path. But the nation is not really under water (well, except for the collapse of the economy), it is blazing with heat. America erupted from coast to coast in the middle of a deadly pandemic as people across the racial and economic spectrum stood and screamed, “ENOUGH!”

America. . . .

CAN YOU HEAR US NOW?

Across the nation, people are literally risking disease and death from COVID-19 to protest this appalling lack of justice. Cities are handling this uprising in completely different ways. Most places just aren’t accustomed to massive protests but Washington D.C., our nation’s capital, has plenty of experience handling huge crowds on a regular basis.

In my time in Washington, I’ve participated in so many actions that it would be hard to list. I helped organize some of them: the Million Man March in 1995; the Children’s Defense Fund’s Stand For Children in1996; and many others where I marched with my family and fellow Sojourners community members. My last act of civil disobedience was Don’t Bomb Iraq in 2002.

D.C. marches are usually huge and passionate, but as per the media code of “it bleeds it leads,” coverage of these events is almost always sensationalized. Pockets of demonstrators breaking windows or lighting cars on fire get the attention while the purpose gets lost in the coverage. For the most part, the city has this down to a science . . . just don’t crack TOO many heads.

The protests in D.C. this week were, in my opinion, business as usual until Monday night. Mayor Muriel Bowser had set a curfew for 7 p.m., but the people gathered in Lafayette Square had been protesting peacefully all afternoon. As curfew approached, folks kept marching, singing, chanting and just basically exercising their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble. The clergy at St. John’s Episcopal Church (known as the Church of the Presidents because every president since James Madison has worshiped there at some point), had been welcoming protestors to the patio all day for water and rest, but had begun to pack up in time to beat the curfew.

Then, President Donald Trump decided he had to make a show of toughness and dominant alpha maleness. After reports leaked of his security detail hustling him into the emergency bunker under the White House on Friday night, he was reportedly embarrassed at the revelation because he felt it made him look weak. Hiding because Americans were demanding justice and accountability from the Leader of the Free World is really weak.

With no warning and prior to curfew, mounted units of the U.S. Park Police began to “expand the perimeter” with sudden force because the president decided to “take a walk” across Lafayette Park. Park Police and other federal units moved to violently expel the peaceful assembly.

Riot shields, batons, non-lethal projectiles, rearing horses and chemical weapons were all applied in heavy doses. For the grand finale, helicopters from . . . somewhere, (one was a medevac chopper) hovered 40 feet above Lafayette Square, the rotor wash snapping tree branches and kicking up debris that pelted fleeing protestors.

Across the nation, police have been targeting the media, and it was no different in D.C. A news crew from Australia was attacked by police, live on morning TV for viewers to digest with breakfast.

It was a stunning display of power by the federal government against its citizens, lawfully and peaceably assembling in the capital. For 48 minutes in the vicinity of the White House, one could be forgiven if they thought Generalissimo Francisco Franco had risen from the dead and was back in charge.

An asshole before, but now he has two.

Amid the booms of flash-bangs and clouds of tear gas, riot cops cleared the square and formed a cordon for the president as he strode confidently and powerfully across Lafayette Park to St. John’s Church, where he posed, holding a Bible aloft.

It was all for a strange and clumsy photo opportunity. Trump then returned to the White House and waited for the accolades to roll in.

But he may have been a bit disappointed when the Bishop of the Episcopal Church calmly, and with much prayerful discernment, tore him a new asshole.

To make matters worse for Trump and his administration, the very next day, more protestors marched than in days before, and they stayed on the streets way past curfew and with no major confrontations.

Some watching on TV were disappointed:

I guess Trump’s popcorn also got cold as he waited for the main event. Too bad.

This is Washington, the District of Columbia, and like it or not, this is how we roll.

Ironically, the heavy-handed way Trump big-footed our city government is a perfect argument for D.C. statehood. Nowhere else in the United States could he have pulled off bringing active-duty troops into the city without a state’s governor giving consent.

The thought of Washington D.C. having the same representation as Wyoming gives conservatives nightmares.