I’m old so I don’t know if this link will work, but it was on Shaun King’s Instagram.
The link does not work. It requires you to log in to Instagram.
Here’s a twitter link. Also getting info that the person being kidnapped might be trans femme. https://twitter.com/MichelleLhooq/status/1288253381883113475?s=20
i’m kind of mad at the other protesters for not overpowering the cops and getting the kidnapped one back
by my count 3 cops in the beginning with the minivan, 3 cops appear soon after on bikes.
i’m not saying i’m strong/bad ass/brave enough to definitely have done something different and gotten away with it. i get it. nobody wants assaulting the police on their criminal record but they have the numbers. idk just disappointing
no, they stepped up but didn’t have the numbers. you can’t ask people to just immediately throw themselves into a possible meat-grinder; the people around you aren’t life-long soldiers who have had psychopathy beaten into them.
we need more people to step forward like that, yes, but the way you get that is by making sure people don’t get so isolated in the first place. then when people freeze for a second while others step forward, it looks like the whole crowd is surging forward. the movement of the people nearby will encourage more people to move with them.
then you’ve got the potential to do something and pull someone out of a situation like this (or just prevent it outright because the cops are too afraid to engage).
all jokes and memes aside, the situation im seeing now really deeply terrifies me. Im getting out to protest but i know at any second i could be arrested, kidnapped, or even killed and the police would not be held accountable. how do yall lefties deal with the paranoia and hopelessness?
I know deep down that I have to keep going, keep fighting, keep trying to build something new and different. if I get hurt or die in the process, okay, that was going to happen anyway. if you’re white, cis, and male (I am not any of these), then maybe it seems like there is actually an alternative. fascism annihilates itself, there’s no real refuge in shutting down, internalizing the fear, and toeing their line. eventually they will come for all of us. if I watch them take the people I love first, I’ve only made it easier to come for me next. and they will. fascism always does.
there’s no hope in hiding. there’s no hope in sitting still and watching the darkness swallow you whole. there’s no hope that you’ll be overlooked, in passing for the majority identity. the clip in the OP, what’s happening in Portland – the kidnappings, the brutality – they’re done to make you feel fear. just enough fear and, they think, you’ll seek refuge in these false hopes. you, I, we all know that they aren’t real but with enough fear you can shut that sense of reality up and adopt the “realism”, the “pragmatism” they offer you in it’s place.
the fear is rational. we all feel it. it’s real and it’s valid. but the paranoia and helplessness are as much weapons being turned against you to cloud your judgement and once set aside, there’s only one path any of us can take: planning ahead for what you can, accepting the consequences for what you cannot.
what’s the alternative? giving up and dying? fat chance. they can come take me, my health, my life but I know what my best odds for survival are: to build the community that can shelter me through this storm, that can take power and shelter us all.
Learn from people who’ve been on the ground for awhile.
Here’s a great thread on twitter about a bunch of different things related to protest: https://twitter.com/OccupiedSeattle/status/1279186579286720512
Do we know if this was NYPD or DHS? I’ve seen conflicting info.
Edit: NYPD Twitter account claimed it was them.
They also claimed the officers involved had bottles thrown at them which video evidence clearly shows if false.