On November 27, the Black Lives Matter, Not Black Friday protest shook up the retail core of Seattle. I stayed for as long as I could and documented it.
1 PM: Signs in Century Square, the de facto heart of the retail district.
Protesters strain to hear the speaker’s bullhorns over the blare of Christmas carols, Century Square.
Holiday shoppers watch the protest from the safety of Westlake Center, a popular downtown mall.
Several hundred demonstrators occupied intersections while POC (people of color) speakers used an Occupy-style “human microphone” to spread their message.
Disrupting traffic in Seattle: some motorists were frustrated, while others were empathetic and waited patiently.
Occupying a popular intersection beside corporate retailer Nordstrom—fuck the holiday season, start a revolution!
3 PM: First attempt to get into Westlake Center, at the north entrance …
… which doesn’t end well (cops 1, POC 0)–the first arrest of four arrests made that day.
The crowd of protesters was diverse, with many white allies.
An attempt by protesters to enter Pacific Place, an upscale shopping center, brings cops–and a few incongruous self-designated “superheroes” (costumed vigilantes).
Protesters occupied all four floors of Forever 21, a corporate retailer guilty of unethical practices.
4:15 PM: A quick conversation, as police block off streets, before heading to Westlake Center for the tree lighting–and the latter half of the protest.
The Slog, the daily blog run by The Stranger (one of Seattle’s weekly papers), covered the protest and captured, among many other people, me (in dark glasses, foreground). I lost most of my voice shouting and leading chants.
I need to figure out how to upload some video footage here. It features protesters infiltrating Macy’s, even as a security guard tried to shut its doors, and occupying Forever 21. At the latter store, I was right behind one of the march’s organizers when she simply and miraculously opened one of its doors and said, “Come on in.” Then we all swept in—an unstoppable tide of people that took about 15 minutes to all get through the door. We rode the escalators to the top of the store, shouting chants like “Black lives matter, not this shit.” Shoppers were flummoxed or pretended to ignore us while scurrying to the dressing rooms, but a few pumped their fists in solidarity.
The Black Lives Matter march went on to effectively disrupt the tree lighting ceremony and finally infiltrate the two downtown malls. Some great photos and coverage can be found here. Four arrests were made, but there were no blast balls, tear gas, or major violence like I’d experienced during the WTO. And unlike the Martin Luther King Day Black Lives Matter march earlier this year, it didn’t end in the cops going crazy with the pepper spray. So in that respect, the protest was a relative success. However, many white shoppers became irate, completely overlooking the point of the protest: black lives matter more than consumerism.
Michael Brown. Trayvon Martin. Tamir Rice. Sandra Bland. Eric Garner. Freddie Gray. Tanisha Anderson. LaQuan McDonald. The countless unnamed by the media.
So many. Too many. Black lives matter. Say it with me—not “all lives matter”—that’s also true but missing the goddamn point here.
Black lives. All of them. Protected and respected. That may sound like a liberational fantasy, but that’s what protests like these are working toward.
Affecting corporate retailers—America’s money—like Chicago’s protesters did on North Michigan Avenue, is the best way of getting attention and pointing to where the real value lies. Not in 40% off the Kindle Unlimited, but in the black lives lost and those that need to be fiercely and lovingly cherished and preserved.
rhymeswithrace 