17.317 Interactions with Riot Police

I don’t try to be a news blog, but the Internet entire knows about the Arizona immigration bill. Politically, it’s insane on a level that belongs in the first half of a diaster movie. But it got me to finally join the ACLU, which is something I’ve been meaning to do since 2002. Better late than never.

The ACLU’s mailbot convinced me to email my representative and tell them not to enact another instance of the Arizona law. I drafted my email, but then remembered that I live in Berkeley, California. This city might hate public transportation, but we know how those organic, pesticide-free apples get to Andronico’s. Really, drive through the Central Valley. The road is lined with person-shaped billboards of smiling Caucasian farmers holding produce, every one captioned “Today, we’re growing tomatoes!” or the like. Find a radio station that isn’t playing Reggaeton. I dare you.

Fortunately, I feel a loose connection to three sets of elected officials, so I plugged in my pre-voting age address in Georgia and hit send.

Imagine my surprise when I received an auto-reply message from one of the few elected officials who might actually know a) who I am and b) that I definitely don’t live in Georgia any more. I shot off a quick and mildly awkward follow up note. Hey, glad you’re still in office, how’s it going? It was the equivalent of my all time favorite party-leaving excuse: Excuse me, I have to make sure the window still works.

But, like the congenial elected official I campaigned for, Doug Holt (State Senator – R) wrote me back. Before the appropriate niceties, he tossed this tidbit into my inbox, too.

There are some folks here looking at what Arizona has done, but with our session about to end, there is no time for any action until next year. That should give us the perspective of some elapsed time, which will help with weeding out the silly stuff.

I don’t know what I was expecting. I suppose anything this side of “we’re fueling up the trucks for the mass arrests now” should be a pleasant surprise. But I can think of a lot better starting points than Arizona SB 1070 if you want to look for non-“silly stuff.”

I replied on April 30, the day before May Day (International Worker’s Day). After a wonderful evening of Chinese food and board games, I walked with a group of friends towards the 16th Street and Mission BART station. For my handful of non-SF based readers, if I were going to stage an anti-Arizona protest on May Day, I would do it at the 16th Street and Mission BART station. By 11 pm, the embers of populist rage were still glowing on streets that separated me from my train back to the East Bay. I’m always amazed by the unwillingness of riot police to answer questions like “which way to the train station?” but that’s a subject for another post. Fortunately, living in Boston from 2003-2008 prepared me to deal with riot police, even in my later evening state.

Before heading home, I ducked into the last bits of the hoopla to see what it was all about. Unsurprisingly, the people most likely to be affected by anti-immigration laws cleared out long before the police arrived. Maybe a dozen middle class, white kids were raping at the cops by the time I got there, observed by at least a hundred spectators and maybe as many police officers.

Hey, somebody has to fan the flames of freedom. If that someone is some moderately stupid-looking 18-24 year olds shouting at bored riot police, in a city that’s already trying to boycott the State of Arizona, that works for me. I may not have found people that I agree with 100% of the time, but I’d rather spend my time blithely aware of an ongoing and steady march towards progress than trying to induce some Bizzaro version of the 1950’s when everyone got along, was employed, and everyone else’s problems were their own. Or as I told my former State Senator:

I really do my best to represent my home state well among all these Yankees and Left Coast types, and my friends and I are proof that there's more than just hippies out here. But I get frustrated when some of the more stringently theocratic decisions emanating out of Atlanta hit the national news. I know none of my gay friends are going to get married in either of our states in the next few years, but I'm glad my darker skinned friends are still welcomed and treated equally under the law.

Just to make sure I don't end on a serious note, San Francisco at its finest:

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