Okay, so I get up this morning in a county that my governor has declared to be in a state of emergency for the day because a white nationalist is coming to town. That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me. I sometimes am amazed that I can still say, “That’s the first time that’s ever happened to me,” because most of the time I feel like I’m old enough to have seen just about everything. It’s a big ol’ world, I guess.
I just want to share my reflections on my experience today in a little city that’s made the national news because a guy that we didn’t even want here and who we tried to say no to showed up anyway.
Here goes.
First, it was a little bit eerie driving up to campus smack in the middle of the day in very thin traffic. Usually 1:00 on a weekday when school is in session is plenty trafficky. I had expected some reduction because we were all told that major roads would be closed today for this thing, but it was still eerie. I saw a lot of cops on the road.
Up on the edge of a major thru-fare that runs close to campus, just before it was barricaded, the Women’s March Florida — Gainesville/Ocala chapter had a tent set up on the edge of a shopping plaza and were giving out information and water and free hugs to anyone who wanted them. They had counterparts in a park down the way who had sign making material and chalk and were serving as an alternate for folks who didn’t want to go onto campus, but still wanted to make a statement for love and unity and against hate and division. There were tons of people there, and only a few cops.
On campus the energy was high, but not any more so to me than before a big football game. The crowd mix was really pretty much what I see on campus, overwhelmingly young, more white than the city at large, but not quite as white as it usually seems to me. That was a good sign to me. The black and brown people weren’t intimidated.
Alachua County has the unfortunate history of having had more lynchings than most any other county, so there was a time when black people especially felt intimidated by white nationalist events. So like I said, it was good to see them there and at the same time made me sad that their being there is still a remarkable display of courage and commitment.
Also, it made me feel glad that I live in a place where the county commissioners just last month voted unanimously to place memorial markers around the county in remembrance of those lynched.
So the deal about the tickets was they were supposed to be given out last Saturday at noon, but then the Dick people (oh, and I will be referring to Richard Spencer as Dick throughout) the Dick people got wind that the Gainesville people were gonna scarf up those tickets and trade them in for free beer. Dick and his nuts didn’t like that change in their conquest plans too much, so they followed the lead of the DOTUS and said they were gonna do something else about the, but didn’t really say what it was gonna be until they said what it was gonna be and then said something else.
I know. The suspense was killing us, too, but here’s how it played out. You had to line up to get in. You had to walk through this really long, narrow man made corridor. The walls of the corridor were Florida State Troopers, and they were close enough to touch you. It was a seriously long corridor with a seriously large number of troopers on either side. As you inched your way up the corridor, the troopers would say stuff to you like, “You can’t wear a hat in there.”
I heard one guy respond with, “I’d rather keep my hat than listen to a Nazi.” That guy voluntarily left the line.
When you made it to the front of the line, there were a half dozen or so white guys in white shirts and dark sunglasses and khaki pants. Those were Dick’s nuts. They would look you over and then convey to the troopers whether you would be let in or not. A thumbs up, thumbs down thing. The troopers would enforce whatever decision was made. Either in or out. No reason given in most cases. (I hate how current events are so frequently recalling the Hunger Games to me.)
I, of course, never had any interest in getting in for the speech, so I drove out to the park to deliver the chips and mixed nuts and Hershey’s Kisses I’d picked up at the start of my journey. Unfortunately, one or those little storm clouds that we get down here sometimes let loose, and by the time I got to the park no one was there. I don’t think it even rained on campus. Weird. I went to shelter and watched the live stream.
Annieli’s got a diary up with lots of great links to what happened at the speech. What I’ll say here is that the kids shouted him down for an hour and a half, and Dick spent half his speech scolding them. Now, I’m the mom of a couple of 20 somethings, and I’m very, very sure if you want to bring them over to your side, spending half your air time scolding them absolutely, positively will not work. I think I’ll laugh about that for at least the rest of the week.
The last thing I want to talk about is the cops. We had a lot of cops in town today. We had city cops, county cops, state cops. I’ve never seen a higher concentration of cops in any one place. I wrote a diary a couple of days ago saying, among other things, that I thought that was overkill and was just stoking a fire, not to mention the taxpayer money we had to cough up to provide them.
I feel differently now. I drove onto campus and saw thousands of young, idealistic, energized, people the same age or just younger than my own children. I thought of what happened in Charlottesville. Was it worth $500k to protect them? I decided it was.
Today, one guy from Orlando got arrested for bringing a gun on campus. One guy wearing a Nazi shirt got punched in the face and was ganged up on until police removed him to a safe spot. One guy shot a gun out of a truck after the rally just up the street and fled. No one was hit. That’s all the incidents I heard of today.
The police did their job. I appreciate that. Their presence on campus today was intimidating. I didn’t like it. But I did look at them and I recognized some of them. They are people I’ve seen around here. The sense that I got from the local police is that they were damned if they were gonna let some outside Nazi agitator fuck with their city. The didn’t let Dick and his nuts do that. No one died. No one even came close. I don’t know if it could have been done for less than $500k, but that’s what was spent and it worked. No one died. No one even came close.
I’m sure we’ll have lots of opportunity around here over the next weeks to debrief on this and collect lessons learned into plans for next time. That’s how we roll.
Meanwhile, I’m so proud of my city, the students, law enforcement, the government leaders, and especially, especially, the activists. There’s plenty of overlap in those groups!
I really, really love Gainesville.