I ride home under the waxing moon at 2am on streets that are still vibrating. People are out, police are out, there are remnants in all directions. I ride towards a group of police cars with naive optimism, and get told that I am not allowed to enter the park, which would under normal circumstances be open. As an afterthought, the officer stops me, tells me I don’t have a light and need to push the bike, and seemed ready to give me a ticket if he wasn’t otherwise occupied.
How to explain the atmosphere of a newborn police state? Though it is not truly newborn. This is an unapologetic reawakening of deep-rooted fissures, previously pacified by capitalism and consumption.
I was always so impressed with this city — it can share a vibe like no other. There are days when you go outside and everyone is united by a given feeling, that particular feeling rarely seeming to even matter beyond the ease with which the sense of it was shared. Though there were protests and marches to support the black community worldwide, the larger protest today in Berlin was really a party. A Protest Party festival, celebrating openly along the canals, in the canals on countless party boats, closing roads, filling sidewalks, raving in the parks and on rooftops, all in supportive protest of the closure of club culture in Berlin and in general releasing all the built up tension of quarantine. For that is what a good night out can offer — inebriation, yes, but also release and integration.
A small part of me feels something like inspiration. Americans take to the streets and paint signs and protest, sometimes violently; Berliners meanwhile play their techno music and dance barefoot with their cigarettes. Both create scenes so vastly different than the socially distanced images of a week or two ago that it seems now clear the pathogen has shifted from Covid19 to social unrest.
All the same I must shake my head at the blind delusion of it all. As if partying was the most important thing in the world. There was a distinct arrogance to the scenes on the streets today, a vastly different communal energy than some other countries where people are wearing masks regularly on the street just to show their sense of mutual respect. Germany wasn’t hit as hard by the virus as in other places, and whether that is by chance or by fate, it would seem reasonable to remain humble and at least moderate, rather than throwing a communal rave along the canal, right in front of one of Berlin’s public hospitals.
It was poker night again, and I was surrounded by various forms of testosterone swinging their dicks around, some of which knew how to play the game, others who just knew how to bet, and a few, who knew nothing at all. There were enough of us to see what happened to the energy of the game, depending upon the personality of the person with the most chips. Some people really failed as leaders, so to speak, blatantly pursuing self-interest at the expense of the enjoyment and perpetuation of the game, and usually ended up losing it all anyway. Other leaders showed their collective compassion, leaving bids small, until there really was something worthwhile in the hand. In the end, I went all in and lost, just so I could cash in my chips and leave an atmosphere that felt increasingly stagnant and bored.
They say only police can change the violence present in police culture, and though I am an optimist about many things, the complex and varied psychology existing behind police brutality seems to represent such a large collective wound of humanity that it’s hard for me to anticipate its change will come in this generation. These are things that are bred in societies filled with inequality, and will not change overnight. Which means that, sadly, the best tactic at the present is avoidance. When you see police cars, head in the other direction if you can.
(If you don’t feel like getting into a fight, which I rarely do, though I take pride in overcoming obstacles all the same.)
It is for this reason that I go into the park the back way and navigate my way to the other side in the dark, finding it ironic that it is the police that push me as a single woman alone at 2am to the darkest corners of the wooded green. I succeed. Make it to the other side and see a group of resolute policemen walking together with flashlights. Then they heard something which made them robotically break out into a collective run in the opposite direction. For my part I continued on with the moon and light wind, a dark night with a few stars, anger and shock reverberating all around and overhead. As far as I could tell, none of the policemen anywhere, and very few of the partying protesters, were wearing masks.
The city is in a state of pure release. We are all free-falling into the future.
I have nothing else I can say right now, other than many things do not look that same as they used to.
The next morning I awake to news of a friend’s son being brutalized in a Detroit protest. For all extensive purposes, this boy is a pacifist. By contrast the drunken dancing protests of Berlin seem banal and indulgent, even though both are more than likely contributing to viral second waves. Our challenge in this time is going to be to keep our cool, keep our head on straight, in the midst of countless forces trying to sever our vital connection the earth, and any semblance of perspective.
The Emperor of Chaos hides away in his villa making side comments on Twitter while fires and tear gas encircle the White House and we are reminded of all the riots of revolution that have occurred throughout the human reign on this earth. We are told that the Antifa are now considered a “terrorist organization” by governing powers, which means that anyone accused of involvement has not legal rights. A protest about police brutality and injustice in the justice system countered by accusations of terrorism, a stripping of already negligible civil rights.
We are good in this country about telling other people how they should live their lives and how they should act. We preach a high standard and still discriminate ourselves based on skin color. It is a long and violent history, repeating even as the evidence piles up, that violence never works in the end. When you are violent it creates a scapegoat to distract from the original atrocity, the murder of a nonviolent, compliant man.
The rivalry between the US and China is becoming more surreally parallel as fascism fights it out in the streets on both sides of the world.
In this absurd reality
People will die of something
Hypocrisy
The national guard on standby
How to hold the outrage — that is what the police need to do, even if they can’t. This is a collective ceremony, a release of violent energy and grief and anger and frustration and despair. This is a point where the police need to see, they don’t need to do anything, other than bear witness.
Don’t tell me we can’t change.
People can change, when they want to.
We the people forced that change.
We need to mobilize the best in our people, rather than allow the worst.
Don’t lose the passion, use it. Be constructive and destructive of things that need to be broken.
Fulfill the promise of American greatness. Release the magma that is flowing inside of us.
This volcano is ready to blow…
You’re gonna have the same indignation in your voice when it happens.
While Youtube leads us all down our individual algorithmic rabbit holes, Facebook continues allow its forum to run unchecked. Studies reveals that algorithms exploit the human brain’s attraction to divisiveness, and if left unchecked, the platform would continue to feed users more and more divisive content. In a land where everything needs to have a red or blue stamp, it seems that Twitter is turning into the Democratic site, while Facebook is deemed Republican. As fires and riots spread across the country, orphans of jihadist parents are left to die of malnutrition in refugee camps, and some people truly believe it is better that way, better to fight a good fight over land filled with oil, and then evacuate once our various egotistical and economic needs are met, leaving remnants and rubble and destroyed humans in our wake.
We are good at telling people what they should do. Do as we say, not as we do.
The big issues are Outrage, Chronic Hypocrisy, Endemic Racism.
We are burning down the house where the abuse took place.
As Maya Angelou once said, Hate does not solve problems. And though we need to rise above, what do we do about all those screaming inner children? Or all those yelling full grown adults?
And don’t forget to leave when you go, mmm-hm!
(Mareen Down makes a suggestion to @Jack to listen to his better Buddhas and cut the man off.)
We all know the Wicked Witch of the West had a hard childhood. That’s why she needs to take a time out for a while and get some therapy.
Keep it Humble.
Melting the inner child.
Mini Me.
Drake tells all the children in the village that they can go into the shop and get whatever they want. Close your eyes and listen to his voice, the child who always wanted to hear just that.
How many layers of this can you see? That is how complex this is, deep-rooted, both individually, as well as a collective. This moment of Active Evolution does not come without pain.
Change comes when the stars line up, says the Governor, and when people are ready.
Self policing does not work in severe cases, and this is a situation that is far beyond severe. We have turned blind eye after blind eye, and like this moment became moment became moment.
Welcome an empowered citizenry. One that has learned all the lessons of our elders. Be specific about the changes you want made and focus that energy. Make it a laser.
Like this we return to breathing
We must breathe into the transformation
Heard this before somewhere
The naive optimist
Here is the lesson from Berlin to NY, and the rest of the world —
Don’t get violent,
Just dance.
“Did you see Tanya’s son was brutalized by the police? He is ok, but could hardly walk and has gauges on his upper body.”
A second viral wave. The risk and the reward.
If I die, before I wake, ain’t no nobody’s fault but mine.