Prop 8 protest in Los Angeles today was pretty good as far as these things go. Big crowd (estimated later at 12,000 but I think it was larger), good vibe, lots of enthusiasm and energy. But something kinda weird happened at the end of the "planned" event and the start of the "ad hoc" protest.
More after a brief word from our sponsor.
My husband and I just got back home from the protest at LA City Hall. I'm seeing if anyone knows what might have happened at the end of the march after the rally.
We arrived downtown a few minutes late at about 10:45 and the program had just started. Somehow we happened to be extremely close to the stage, not in front but on the side. Loudspeaker towers and protest signs blocked most of our view of the stage, but we did get a few glimpses.
Some of the speakers were pretty good, but there were too many of them and some spoke longer than they should have. It was getting pretty hot, it hit the mid-90s here today in the middle of November, and shade was at a premium.
After about an hour, the crowd started getting restless, chanting "march, march" -- so I guess they rushed through the rest of the speakers to get us on the road. We were going "to the park" they said. Just "to the park," nothing more.
We were within maybe 50 yards of the front of the procession, due to being so close to the stage. We walked thru downtown a bit and then through Chinatown -- both pretty much deserted, and no "Pro 8" counter-protesters that we saw.
We kept walking further and further away from downtown, and a lot of people were grumbling about why we were being shunted off to some back corner of downtown LA. Finally we reached the end of the planned march -- some dry, dusty piece of land on Spring Street right up against the LA River.
There was a stage set up, along with 2 porta-potties. People saw that and en masse the entire crowd turned around and started walking back to City Hall!!!
Some guy on a loudspeaker beseeched us to "stay for the program" -- but no one was having any of that!!! This is LA, baby, we came out today to be seen, not marched through deserted streets, then dumped in a hot, dry field of packed dirt that may once have been a "park, and then expected to stay and listen to more speakers under a brutal, cloudless sky.
As we started turning back to City Hall, people were now starting to chant "Whose streets? Our streets." The group that arrived first at the "park" that we were part of convinced those behind us to turn around and lead us back to City Hall. (What we were planning to do after that I haven't a clue.)
A couple of cops were walking alongside us talking with someone who we're guessing was an organizer of the event, asking him "What are you going to do? What do you want us to do?" We didn't hear his response, but I'm sure he didn't know either.
Eventually as the crowd moved back to City Hall (on the sidewalks, as the cops were starting to reopen the streets), we heard over a loudspeaker that there was gong to be a continuation of the march over to Hollywood with a police escort, but we decided to head home instead.
The cops were way cool about the whole thing, especially when the planned event completely disintegrated and the situation could have become quite anarchic. The crowd was pretty cool about everything too, I didn't see any problems of any kind along the route -- although it was starting to get interesting when it became clear the protesters were not going to play along with the original plans.
We never did hear what route we were taking or that there was a "program" planned. Not sure why, but if you want people to do what you want, its often better to tell them what you want them to do ahead of time.
I'm just wondering why anyone expected that we wanted to hang around in a dusty old dump of a park that made it seem like we were being shunted away in a corner out of view. Whoever's idea that was, please don't do that again!
Perhaps some of you can help fill in the blanks of what happened in LA today.