Signs Of Fear, Signs Of Hope

Facebook Post Sunday, September 20, 2009 at 10:41pm

These are my personal thoughts on my day, not to be quoted as an authority on anything except my own perceptions. (And even those change!)

The first unjust arrest was made this weekend. From what I hear (all fourth hand), the Seeds Of Peace Collective's kitchen bus was legally parked, but empty when the police decided to check it out. When the volunteers returned from delivering food, they could not produce proof of ownership, so the bus was towed away w/a large fine. The volunteers were asked to produce identification. One woman unthinkingly gave her nickname, the name she goes by, instead of the name on her identification, so she was arrested and held. As of this morning, it was unclear where she was in the system. The ACLU is trying to help. There may be more to this story. This is all I heard. Seeds of Peace and Everybody's Kitchen are here to feed the masses. This kind of harrassment seems an indication to me of how jumpy police are, suspecting everyone. Seeds of Peace were part of the permit application denied, to be able to park their two busses in a city park to prepare food. Instead, they park legally elsewhere and still get in trouble!

A large downtown bank looks quite ugly. Their usual glass windows are entirely boarded up. The only part of their downstairs not boarded up is the door to get in. Pure fear.

Today's G 6 Billion event went well, glitch included. There was a nice variety of speakers. The flags all looked quite beautiful! The convention center is built over a street, so the street runs through it like a tunnel. Our plan was to walk through on this street, carrying all of the flags of the world, bringing the voices of the world to the convention center. We had flags from 192 countries plus the UN flag, the Vatican flag, a rainbow flag, and several church flags.
We walked from a downtown church with all of these beautiful flags and diverse faiths, singing about justice and freedom. When we got near the convention center, police came out to meet us and formed a line blocking our way. We stopped, and stood there calmly holding our flags and singing, while two G 6 Billion coordinators negotiated w/the police (such as showing them our permit). The media had cameras running and clicking the whole time. Our permit did not seem to matter. We ended up agreeing to an alternate route around the convention center to our rallying point on the other side of the building. We calmly proceeded.
Then, the police official in charge asked to speak with one of the ministers in our group, and asked her to convey his apology to the group. He admitted that he had not taken the time to read our permit, and he had given in to a request from the convention center instead of carefully investigating our rights. He felt he was in the wrong, and apologized. He realized that we had followed the proper channels to walk on the street they blocked off.
I find this whole scenario very hopeful! Our exhausted coordinators were able to talk things over. The crowd was able to wait patiently, receive directions from the coordinators, and change plans. I am hoping that the police learned that 1) they need to take the time to read permits presented to them! and 2) chanting people waving flags are not the enemy, and can be respectful and cooperative people. I hope that this experience will help allay some of their fears, and set a good tone for the coming week.

After the walk, I heard that a number of people who participated have never been part of a public witness before, and that the process of putting this event together and doing it has created some new activists in several faith communities.

This evening I attended a meeting for peace guides for the People's March coming up on Friday (a legal march). I was inspired by all of these wonderful people I do not yet know. Really good, concerned people doing a great deal of work on plans. Good insights, good questions... I am looking forward to getting to know more of them in the coming week. We hope to have about 70 peace guides on Friday.

I am convinced that the positive energy coming from so many people praying for Pittsburgh is already having an effect. Please keep it up!