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maeveleI'm not posting about the current fucked up shit here, other than my personal experience. There's nothing I can say that hasn't been said better by smarter people. I've been doing what I can to spread info on fb, and irl, and watching streams for most of my waking hours, except for when I've been out on the street.
I went out the first day people were protesting in Madison, right after they started teargas, with the intention of staying on the sidelines and helping people who got sprayed or tear gassed, and instead wound up at the front for a minute as they advanced on me and I was too stubborn to run. I finally saw the clip my protest buddy got, of me standing there with my hands up going "oh god, am I really doing this" as they got closer and pointed the pepper spray gun in my direction.
I stupidly held my ground until they were close enough to touch, and then backed away, asking them if they thought their moms were proud of what they were doing. Their response was to throw a canister between me and my only path away from them, forcing me to go directly through the cloud. After that I mostly stayed at the edges of things with milk, (until I discovered how much better antacid worked at the end of the night) occasionally pulling people I knew out of the rush when they got gassed, keeping eyes on people who were on the front line, and setting up in front of a local business for a while to remind people it was local as other businesses were looted. I say I was at the edges but I still got close enough that I got pretty heavily tear gassed three more times that night, and got pretty close to cops while trying to talk them into getting a houseless friend his backpack that they wouldn't let him grab when they cleared the street. He was getting in their faces a bit, and I stepped in and used my whiteness to de escalate and then distracted them a minute while he ducked down an alley and over some fences to get his gear.
Another houseless friend got pepper sprayed directly in the face while kneeling, and then they dropped a canister right in front of him. That's when I found out antacid worked better, after dragging him out of the crowd they were pushing down the street while he was blinded and trying to clear his eyes with milk for maybe 15 minutes.
I haven't gone back out since that night, because if I get hurt or arrested I'm worried about the kid having to go to her dad's, who she basically fired for abusive behavior in November. I've done what I can signal boosting, and telling the group of younger protesters making signs on my porch how to stay safe, but I'm probably going back out if it gets wild tonight to help however I can.
My partner's older stepkid has been out every night, and got arrested monday night while trying to keep things peaceful, breaking up fights, stopping looters,
(while still throwing back tear gas because he has gloves and a gas mask) and his face and wrists don't look like they were nice about it. They straight tackled his brown ass face first into the concrete. and I have to just be grateful they didn't do worse, which fills me with a rage bigger than I am. I've known him since he was like, little, I considered him family even before I was with his stepdad,so it hits home. I saw one of his cousins, who I've also known since he was a kid, get pepper spray straight to the face on the news feed. I'm so scared that the cops are going to kill one of these brave young men one of these nights, and I grieve for every child they've already killed.
I haven't been sleeping before like 11 am for days now, because my brain just won't stop until I'm at collapse mode. And when I do sleep, I dream of trying to protect small poc friends who I haven't seen since quarantine hit. Like, I know T is walking, and L must be speaking in full sentences. and I just miss them and want to keep them safe. Last night I dreamt of holding them both strapped to me while they slept peacefully at a place (rainbow) we were all safe.
Living downtown during this has been weird in it's own way. I'm close enough that I can hear it when it's on the bottom half of state, theres sirens all night, we've had people coming to hide out in our yard from the cops and gas when it gets too hot a couple blocks up, one of our neighboring coops had tear gas come in the windows and hit the fucking children in the middle of the night, and I still get to hear white ass frat boys talking about grabbing bricks and "joining the fun" while they party like it's any other day.
And it's small in comparison, but my favorite fucking rainbow bus got taken by the fucking cops for offering food and first aid, and I'm not okay with that either. That's the bus I sat in helping injured people and wishing I was a medic when the guy attacked people at a gathering, and it got taken as a "threat" because it had knives and hatchets for the woodstove, and I feel some kinda way about that.
I know it's fucked up to be making a post that's all about me and my experiences with this, as a white person, but I need to get it out somewhere, and this is less publicly taking up space than anywhere else.
I had already been on what I thought was my last fucking scrap of cope back before quarantine hit, and haven't had a minute to fully recoup and process from the shit that went down in my life in December and January before all hell broke loose on the larger scale. (That included my kid having a mental health crisis that had me trying to decide whether she needed inpatient care, and considering putting myself in because it was making me breakdown, and a medical issue causing one of my partners to have a full crisis episode, and the entire social fabric my house falling apart) I'm apparently great in a crisis, but I need time to recover after holding it together, and shit just keeps coming.
Also, I lost my job yesterday, which is good for me in a lot of ways, but probably real fucking bad for my house and the larger coop org. I actually was going to post about that, and have it written up, but got distracted.
It's just all too fucking much.
I went out the first day people were protesting in Madison, right after they started teargas, with the intention of staying on the sidelines and helping people who got sprayed or tear gassed, and instead wound up at the front for a minute as they advanced on me and I was too stubborn to run. I finally saw the clip my protest buddy got, of me standing there with my hands up going "oh god, am I really doing this" as they got closer and pointed the pepper spray gun in my direction.
I stupidly held my ground until they were close enough to touch, and then backed away, asking them if they thought their moms were proud of what they were doing. Their response was to throw a canister between me and my only path away from them, forcing me to go directly through the cloud. After that I mostly stayed at the edges of things with milk, (until I discovered how much better antacid worked at the end of the night) occasionally pulling people I knew out of the rush when they got gassed, keeping eyes on people who were on the front line, and setting up in front of a local business for a while to remind people it was local as other businesses were looted. I say I was at the edges but I still got close enough that I got pretty heavily tear gassed three more times that night, and got pretty close to cops while trying to talk them into getting a houseless friend his backpack that they wouldn't let him grab when they cleared the street. He was getting in their faces a bit, and I stepped in and used my whiteness to de escalate and then distracted them a minute while he ducked down an alley and over some fences to get his gear.
Another houseless friend got pepper sprayed directly in the face while kneeling, and then they dropped a canister right in front of him. That's when I found out antacid worked better, after dragging him out of the crowd they were pushing down the street while he was blinded and trying to clear his eyes with milk for maybe 15 minutes.
I haven't gone back out since that night, because if I get hurt or arrested I'm worried about the kid having to go to her dad's, who she basically fired for abusive behavior in November. I've done what I can signal boosting, and telling the group of younger protesters making signs on my porch how to stay safe, but I'm probably going back out if it gets wild tonight to help however I can.
My partner's older stepkid has been out every night, and got arrested monday night while trying to keep things peaceful, breaking up fights, stopping looters,
(while still throwing back tear gas because he has gloves and a gas mask) and his face and wrists don't look like they were nice about it. They straight tackled his brown ass face first into the concrete. and I have to just be grateful they didn't do worse, which fills me with a rage bigger than I am. I've known him since he was like, little, I considered him family even before I was with his stepdad,so it hits home. I saw one of his cousins, who I've also known since he was a kid, get pepper spray straight to the face on the news feed. I'm so scared that the cops are going to kill one of these brave young men one of these nights, and I grieve for every child they've already killed.
I haven't been sleeping before like 11 am for days now, because my brain just won't stop until I'm at collapse mode. And when I do sleep, I dream of trying to protect small poc friends who I haven't seen since quarantine hit. Like, I know T is walking, and L must be speaking in full sentences. and I just miss them and want to keep them safe. Last night I dreamt of holding them both strapped to me while they slept peacefully at a place (rainbow) we were all safe.
Living downtown during this has been weird in it's own way. I'm close enough that I can hear it when it's on the bottom half of state, theres sirens all night, we've had people coming to hide out in our yard from the cops and gas when it gets too hot a couple blocks up, one of our neighboring coops had tear gas come in the windows and hit the fucking children in the middle of the night, and I still get to hear white ass frat boys talking about grabbing bricks and "joining the fun" while they party like it's any other day.
And it's small in comparison, but my favorite fucking rainbow bus got taken by the fucking cops for offering food and first aid, and I'm not okay with that either. That's the bus I sat in helping injured people and wishing I was a medic when the guy attacked people at a gathering, and it got taken as a "threat" because it had knives and hatchets for the woodstove, and I feel some kinda way about that.
I know it's fucked up to be making a post that's all about me and my experiences with this, as a white person, but I need to get it out somewhere, and this is less publicly taking up space than anywhere else.
I had already been on what I thought was my last fucking scrap of cope back before quarantine hit, and haven't had a minute to fully recoup and process from the shit that went down in my life in December and January before all hell broke loose on the larger scale. (That included my kid having a mental health crisis that had me trying to decide whether she needed inpatient care, and considering putting myself in because it was making me breakdown, and a medical issue causing one of my partners to have a full crisis episode, and the entire social fabric my house falling apart) I'm apparently great in a crisis, but I need time to recover after holding it together, and shit just keeps coming.
Also, I lost my job yesterday, which is good for me in a lot of ways, but probably real fucking bad for my house and the larger coop org. I actually was going to post about that, and have it written up, but got distracted.
It's just all too fucking much.
