It is going to be a busy week. Starting tomorrow (Saturday), a slew of protests are planned for the week leading up to Super Bowl 50. And while some of them — like tomorrow's planned march protesting the police shooting of Mario Woods — are known, others are being kept on the down-low so as not to tip off the police.
Super Bowl 50 has brought with it to San Francisco plenty of reasons to be upset (think cost overruns and traffic gridlock), but protesters this week mainly appear to be using the national stage the game provides to call attention to issues unrelated the how Super Bowl 50 impacts SF (though there may be some protests about that as well).
“A lot of people are upset, and having millions of eyes on San Francisco is an opportunity to get national and international solidarity with the people and causes here,” Lisa Marie Alatorre of the Coalition on Homelessness told the Chronicle. “My hope is that the city respects our right to get out our message, and recognizes that we’re not coming to mess anything up in destructive ways.” Alatorre plans to help organize a tent city next to Super Bowl City, the paper reports.
Tomorrow's Woods march is set to start at 11 a.m. at Union Square and will end at Super Bowl City, but what is perhaps most interesting are the protests we aren't presently aware of — the "known unknowns," if you will. The Weekly estimates that the biggest planned disruptions have yet to be made public.
"Already, marches and demonstrations are planned and advertised on Facebook," the paper notes. "But the 'real' show — the equivalent of a blocked Bay Bridge or a takeover of a BART train, except seen by a worldwide audience of more than 100 million viewers — is a closely held secret known only by its organizers (if something like that is even in the works).
How police will respond to marches and disrupting protests remains to be seen, but the Coalition on Homelessness's Alatorre shared her hopes.
"Now is really a moment for the police to show they are in solidarity with the community, and not just out to crack skulls."
We'll soon know, either way.
Related: [Update] Video: Mayor Lee Shouted Off Stage By Protesters At MLK Day Event