Woke up today with a familiar feeling after Oakland's May Day events last night, where the Black Pajamas Gang and their Black Bloc tactics have fucked up yet another Occupy Oakland gathering. Normally I'm the one making excuses for the broken window or the graffiti or the garbage can on fire, but I really can't this time. This time it was plainly obvious that members of the so-called "anarchist" group were baiting the cops by chucking bottles at them. One of which arched high in the air and hit a middle-aged female occupier in the back of the head about 10 feet away from me. She nearly fell, clutching her head and screaming in pain as the police pulled her behind their line to receive medical attention.
OPD are the good guys and Occupy are the bad guys? How has it come to this?
Earlier on I had got the feeling that something bad was going to happen. Maybe it was when I wandered over to the familiar communist bookstand on the sidewalk near Oscar Grant Plaza where a woman was shouting into a megaphone with tears in her eyes. "We can not allow people to divide us! If we don't all hang together we're screwed!". The man next to her took over the megaphone and explained that she had been shoved to the ground and spit at by one of the "anarchists" and told that "they don't belong there". One of the anarchists came over and waved the incident away, saying he felt sorry, however there's always one nut who doesn't have his head right and that they all shouldn't be judged by the actions of one idiot.
"That's true," I thought. Can't generalize. I shouldn't judge them all by the actions of one person. I walked on.
About an hour later, I was in a march with a group of over 1000 winding our way to San Antonio Park in East Oakland. It's not the best of neighborhoods, but it's always good when Occupy comes out this way. Many families sit on their front porch to watch us pass as kind of a curiosity. Sometimes they wave and cheer and express support. After being attacked by city hall and the business community it's nice to see that the people who are most hurt by our vulture economy are truly supportive of us. While we were peacefully marching along I saw a masked protestor break away from the rest of us, run toward the McDonalds, and smash in the window with his skateboard while there were customers (and children) inside. "What the fuck!" I yelled, but he had quickly jumped back into the crowd and was lost among his black clad comrades.
"I guess that was just another nut," I thought. Sometimes shit happens, but I shouldn't judge the whole group by two of its members. I marched on.
Fast forward to later.
The OPD hadn't been on its best behavior that day, but compared to the tear gas and arrest orgy they had engaged in on the 25th of January I would call their response relatively restrained. They had been targeting individuals in the crowd, sometimes throwing them on the ground, and arresting them. That's what caused the particular confrontation at the beginning of this diary where police were suddenly being assaulted with a hail of bottles and other throwable objects from Occupy. OPD fired a teargas canister and moved swiftly in quick, running strikes, snatching away corrugated metal "shields" the anarchists carried with them. The police then gave the dispersal order, telling everyone to move north on Broadway. Along the way trashcans were engulfed in flame, smoke and trash drifted across the empty street, and people milled around angry and restless. It had the feel of a post-apocalyptic movie. At around 17th or 18th Street I found myself around a large group of 75-100 people many of whom were wearing masks. Then as the police neared within a block or two of us - not anywhere near us really - the large group burst into a run. The large plate glass windows of the California Bank and Trust were smashed in violently as the first target. The crowd rushed on around the corner, smashing in the windows of an innocent bystander building, kicking over trashcans, and generally trashing anything they came in contact with. It looked like a riot.
I couldn't really think of any explanation for that one. This was clearly not the work of a lone nut.
That scene stuck with me this morning. All around downtown Oakland are the disgraceful signs of what OO has become under the banner of "diversity of tactics": Scared business owners and broken windows. Nothing sums it up quite as perfectly as the boarded up storefront for Footlocker with graffiti that defaces our proud slogan "We are the 99%!". How can we truthfully say that these actions are representative of the 99%? How do you justify this kind of seemingly indiscriminate vandalism? What excuse is there for bashing in a window and terrorizing children eating their happy meals? Or pushing a woman down and smashing a bottle into another's head? Does this help us achieve our goals in any fucking way or is it just self-indulgent violence for no good reason?
I have marched and stood with Occupy since the first week. I have dodged rubber bullets and endured teargas. I have loudly, aggressively denounced the violent methods and unwarranted arrests by the OPD, but WE NEED TO BE BETTER THAN THEY ARE! Occupy Oakland must renounce violence, vandalism, and Black Bloc tactics now. Masks and facial coverings must be abolished. There is no other answer. In the early days I defended the "diversity of tactics" argument. No more. This is just immature bullshit that keeps happening again and again and isn't getting us anywhere. As a peaceful, grassroots movement we should have zero tolerance for any action that terrorizes the public and discredits us and our goals. The stakes are too high for us to allow a small group of assholes to co-opt our message and stain it by making us look even worse than the OPD.
If we want our movement to grow and continue we need to end this shit now.