Sarah Palin Quits
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Happy 4th of July!
SFist Drinks: The Rio Grande Cocktail at 15 Romolo
"Where are we going?"
We heard it over and over on Saturday as we marched along with the procession -- about 4 hours, and nearly 10 miles of walking. "Where are we going?" people kept asking each other. The answer turned out to be (with linked photos): Civic Center to Octavia and the Castro and then back up Market to Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach, along the Embarcadero to Market and then back to Civic Center. We'd estimate that there were a thousand people at one point; and by the end, as the most ardent protesters dragged their way to Civic Center, it was probably down to 100. We left the crowd at that point and went home; later, we were in the Castro, and spotted the protesters again in the middle of the street until around 10pm.
So who was steering the crowd? It varied. Like Canada geese, various folks wandered in and out of the lead, with a few superstars generally taking charge. We observed Shirtless Orange Flag Guy, and Determined Tank Top Dude, and HRC Flag Man and Captain Megaphone, and for a while a bunch of Socialists -- all more or less making it up as they went along; and in general, we'd say they did a pretty good job.
But then. There was that crazy march back to the Castro to sit in the intersection for hours. What was that about, and what should they have done instead? Answers after the jump.
It's that same issue we were talking about before: the dreaded Power Vacuum. People are desperate for action right now -- they really really really want to do something -- a ten mile hike is a good start, but it was clearly anti-climactic, and nobody was telling them what to do next. The official organizations had let us down yet again: they've been MIA since the election, and after their botched campaign nobody trusts them right now anyway. So, where are we going?
There we were, on the steps of City Hall, with the sun about to set; everyone was shouting "what do we want? Equality." And it was starting to seem a little ridiculous because at that point, we were just shouting at ourselves.
Eventually, a couple of leaders stepped up. There was a tall guy with a jacket around his waist (and later, a rainbow cape), and a guy with a megaphone, and someone from the Castro Patrol. They shouted questions to the crowd -- "where do you want to go" -- and the crowd murmured and pointed vaguely.
This would have been an excellent time for a strategy.
The cops were getting impatient and asked who was in charge. The people doing most of the shouting looked around and realized with some surprise that they were. The cops asked what their plans were; it was clearly time to make a decision. So they did: they decided to march down to the Castro, tie up an intersection, and shout "out of the bars and into the streets."
The Castro was not amused. At one point, we observed a representative from the neighborhood get on a megaphone and try to reason with them: "you have the understand the impact this has on your own community," but they didn't want to budge.
Again, this would have been an excellent time for a strategy; but instead, the protesters -- who by the time they reached the Castro numbered about 50 -- were basically just jerking off.
Here's what they should have done instead:
You've got 50 volunteers just sitting on the asphalt waiting for orders; and Walgreen's is right there on the corner, right? Send someone in to buy a bunch of pens, index cards, notepads, flashlights, and some of those cheap blinking raver knick-knacks -- spend about $100. You can afford it; there's 50 of you and none of you have kids.
Then have 40 people stand off to the side -- NOT IN THE INTERSECTION, DOUCHEBAGS -- with a big pretty sign that says "Join The Fight For Equality" or whatever. Have someone run up to their apartment and get some music to play. Those 40 people start writing instructions on the notecards for passers-by who want to get involved: write down instructions for visiting JoinTheImpact.com; participating in the sick-out on December 10; attending the town hall next week (Nov 20 at 6:30pm at the Veteran's War Memorial near City Hall); boycotting Cinemark theaters; and so on. There's 40 of you, so you can generate these instruction cards pretty fast.
Then take the other group of 10 people -- and make them the cutest ones, because people are in the Castro on Saturday night to look for cuties -- and send them into the bars and stores to hand out the instruction cards. Take the notepads, too; write at the top, "Get email updates" and have people write their names and email addresses so you can send them info later. Some of the bars are dark and loud, so bring a flashlight and write the instructions clearly enough that you can just point at them.
And voila. Now you've gotten your marching orders into the hands of an army of gays; and you've got a mailing list to spread marching orders in the future. Not a bad night's work.
You have to understand, this "out of the bars and into the streets" bullshit reflects very poorly on the movement. What exactly are people supposed to do in the streets, sit there and shriek at passers-by? Nobody came out of the bars to join you because you weren't giving them anything to do.
But everyone wants to help. Everyone feels strongly about this issue, even people in bars. They just need someone to tell them how they can make an impact ... someone to answer the question, "where are we going?"
SFist_Matt is the creator of Stop8.org, a post-Prop-8 news and events portal. He is desperately searching for the leader who will answer that question.
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"But everyone wants to help. Everyone feels strongly about this issue, even people in bars. They just need someone to tell them how they can make an impact ... someone to answer the question, "where are we going?""
Bravo, seriously. That was the best, most concise, summation of what is needed right now in this community, and it almost brought me to tears.
Agreed. But hasnt this lack of leadership been the problem from the start regarding Prop 8. Post Nov 4 this is not a new problem, but a lingering unresolved one.
Even at the protest/rally/whatever on Sat-there was no clear message or mechanism to get involved. The events of Saturday were a missed opportunity.
Disrupting traffic and blocking intersections in the Castro seems like one of the least effective activities. The only people who took notice of this were people like me who could not get home because of the f'ed up traffic.
That's a problem I've had with most protests around here. They usually piss off the people most sympathetic to the cause.
Like when we invaded Iraq in 2003. "Yeah, how DARE these people live in the Eats Bay, let's go trap them at the onramps!" Uh, oh...kay?
This was even worse. What the fuck are you gonna do in the Castro?
Excellent, excellent column.
I nominate ... YOU, and the creator of Join The Impact. The Stop8 website is excellent and is a great place to get people involved and organized.
The pre-existing No campaign totally, completely failed. They are NOT the leaders. So forget about them, and also forget the big "mass meetings" this week that will be similarly muddled and full of let's-not-piss-anyone-off "we stand together with communities A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I , J, ... Z, AA, BB, ..." rhetoric.
Instead the key will be to get a team of about 100 serious, committed volunteers involved in taking the names and getting the signups and then scheduling future actions: kindness (outreach to potential swing voters via the "Love Unites" message) and punches to the face (boycotts). Get all these volunteers organized and ready BEFORE the next protest. Then at the next one, sign everyone up.
Oh, and NO organizer written folk music. Dance music, maybe. Singer songwriter guitar solos? No.
One more idea. Matt, set up a Stop8 PAC, and raise some money.
I agree with the street-blockers in that civil disobedience is necessary to use and is a valuable tool in any movement.
But they need to check out how it has been used in the past, and when it has worked, and when it hasn't.
African Americans didn't go to black lunch halls and refuse to leave until they were served, they went into the white neighborhoods. And it was a coordinated, concerted effort.
Even the protesters at the RNC this year had a plan -- they wanted to block all possible entryways for the delegate buses. And in some sense, they succeeded, since many delegates were late.
Any act of civil disobedience should have a PURPOSE. I doubt any of those people sitting in the middle of 18th and Castro (or at Octavia & Market earlier) had any idea what their action was trying to accomplish.
I know you all want to take action, but that doesn't mean it's okay to stop thinking about the consequences before you block off a street.
It's a perversion of the theory of civil disobedience. If you want to shut down the gears to make some change, you'll need more than one street, and -- just a hint -- the gears of hate aren't located in San Francisco.
If people were this angry before November 4th, we wouldn't need these protests, now would we?
You're not going to win the hearts and minds of the voters by these kinds of things. The Yes on 8 people are bigoted assholes, but, they worked within the system and ran a smart and successful campaign.
The only way to beat them is to also work within the system, and run an even smarter and more successful campaign than them.
Running around the streets of San Francisco in drag is not going to change anything.
San Francisco's very own Archbishop Niederauer was instrumental in the Yes on 8 campaign, getting the Mormons involved in this fight. Yes every bishop takes their orders from Rome, but the degree to which Niederauer took action on this is inexcusable, damaging and divisive to the local Catholic community.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/09/MNU1140AQQ.DTL
Why not protest the actions of this man. Take the demonstrations to the Cathedral on Geary. Or the nearby offices of the Archdiocese. Or at the Archbishop's residence.
The problem is that the smart people have realized that plain protesting doesn't work for everything. This leaves the public movement with a lack of brains and, consequently, leadership.
But hey, I hear some rich gay people secretly gave tons of money to "No On 8," so it won't be long until this controversy is a faint memory. Keep gluing fur to your cars, people, the US is no place for bigotry!
The group of people who sat in the Castro and 18th intersection included many people who were there after the week before after the march from City Hall to Dolores Park to City Hall to the Castro. This crowd was much smaller and led by a fellow who had a megaphone. People bought pies and pies of pizza from Escape from New York, trash bags from Walgreens, gave out telephone numbers of elected officials. Supervisor Dufty spoke about how a march in Visitacion Valley or Chinatown could be organized and how our neighborhood is suffering, i.e., All American Boy, on Castro for 32 years, is closing. A person then took the megaphone mike from Dufty to announce he brought trash bags.
It was nice to see how generous people were, but it was hard not to be annoyed when they arranged a ton tea lights in the intersection, leaving behind globs of white candle wax long after they left (and still there), and when a handful of people were moved to the sidewalk to bang a drum and cry on their megaphone "make some noise, honk your horns" into the wee hours.
There was another march that went from Civic Center up Market to Stockton, through Union Square, Chinatown, North Beach, the Wharf, then south on Polk, south on Van Ness for a while and then back to Polk to the Civic Center. The leaders the whole time were the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence and Pollo Del Mar, who had a rolling sound system and mic.
It varied in size, but there were a good amount of people most of the way. Too bad the two different marches didn't get together beforehand! Could've been a pretty big showing.
Thanks for this column. It's time to get strategic. It's time to get motivated in this cause. And most importantly, it time to get our allies into the fight with us.
Could've been a pretty big showing.
To what end?
Mattymatt, did you by chance share these wonderful ideas with the protesters or did you sit silently by giggling to yourself what an insightful column you'd write about it later?
Everyone wants to be the leader and very few have good ideas. Even fewer actually share their ideas. Leadership happens when someone takes the lead, not standing around criticizing--especially after the fact. Maybe next time you could contribute, we could use your help.
I for one am SO HAPPY that they blocked the intersection for hours. Every time they do this, it turns Castro/18th into a pedestrian mall where we can walk around freely without having to take our lives into our hands.
I think the neighborhood would be better off if they just blocked off the streets there permanently (with maybe an exception for delivery trucks).
...but then I think SF in general would be better if they blocked off ALL traffic into the city and had everyone park at BART lots outside (while making BART 24 hrs, obviously). =)
Actually, on further thought, it'd be awesome if the street was converted into sidewalk and trees planted.
Could make the sidewalk all rainbow sparkly.
How about making it the yellow brick road?
If people were this angry before November 4th, we wouldn't need these protests, now would we?
Thanks, that's a shocking revelation that none of us figured out until just now.
For every Prop 8 post I see from now on, I'm going to start taking wagers as to how many comments will be posted before someone writes this, or the equally tired WHERE WERE ALL OF YOU BEFORE NOVEMBER 4TH. I mean, I know it's fun to be sanctimonious on the Internet, but try to aim for originality.
i love that through the (other/splinter/additional) march through union square, saturday shopping traffic and the stockton tunnel where we were following the sisters--- that people thought this was a legally sanctioned march. :)
Doesn't make me any less right.
It's like textual hemochromatosis, right? If you don't get it out, it'll poison you or whatever.