Posted by grillcover on May 22, 2022
Reflections: (May 2021)
Where April seemed like a transition between big projects, May was to pedal to the metal and gearing back up for another climax in June. I was finding my rhythm, learning a ton, becoming more confident and discovering my potential, but also getting totally sucked in and overcommitted. There came a point in processing my existential dread and trauma-induced urgency that I thought I saw a cascade of potentialities that could actually help move us away from disaster; if only I could nudge each wing's trim tab enough, I could do my part to help us change course.
And with the combined approaching deadlines of the Democratic primary on June 22nd and the City Budget at the end of June, there was a convergence of energy and effort that was easy to fixate on. If I could give everything to those next couple months, perhaps after that I'd feel okay to relax. Looking back, I can see how I was setting myself up to burn out. Sadly, there were so, so many things far outside of my control that have kept us right on course to crash.
Things started to blend again, so it's probably best to go chronologically.
Throughout the month, I continued to contact candidates and coordinate the outreach for the NYC Public Safety Pledge. After an initial flurry of sign-ons we'd moved into the long hard period of dutifully following up with candidates and broadening our scope, but still were steadily increasing our tally. I was entrusted with back-end access for the website so I could keep all the additional names tidy without having to bother our professional web devs who'd volunteered their skills.
On May 1st, May Day, I joined with the NYC-DSA for a march and rally in support of the PRO (Protect the Right to Organize) Act. This legislation, which would significantly empower workers to organize and punish companies that got in their way, is seen as a crucial stepping stone toward rebuilding the union movement. At historically low union density and activity and devolving labor conditions (e.g. the gig economy) new regulations are essential. And Biden, for all his foot-dragging, genuinely seemed most favorable to progressive labor reforms.
We gathered at Bailey Fountain in Grand Army Plaza and marched the few blocks to Chuck Schumer's apartment on Prospect Park West. I think this was my first time back there since the day after the Capitol Riot. On a bright, beautiful May Day, though, the vibe was much lighter and more celebratory. When we arrived we found another, smaller environmental protest under way. We paused up the street for a bit to let them wrap up, and after a bit of parley we merged, with our speakers taking over the proceedings demanding Schumer take action.
That afternoon at the picnic in Prospect Park that followed, I was feeling pretty shy and lonesome, but still I ended up meeting someone whose technical insight helped me make a breakthrough on one of my Defund Research side projects. That was heartening.
On May 2nd I stopped in on the new national DSA Mutual Aid Working Group's open meeting and met some of the people across the country who were getting it going. While NYC-DSA put together a large mutual aid fund at the start of the pandemic, and has hosted the occasional aid project or effort-- like the supplies for the striking Teamsters, or the current efforts for the Bronx fire-- there is no centralized body coordinating or expanding those efforts. I was curious to see what other chapters were doing and be ready to connect in case things came together locally.
On a whim I decided to attend an event May 6th for the Dianne Morales mayoral campaign. It seemed like a relatively safe outdoor event with a small crowd, and I was feeling supportive and social. When I got there, sadly, the social side dissipated. But I did make a connection within NYC Mesh, an awesome community internet project I'd been curious about and wanting to get involved with for ages, and did end up briefly speaking to Dianne as she made the rounds.
I look back on our conversation now as foreshadowing for what would play out over the course of the month. She asked the small circle I was standing with how we'd come to the campaign. When it was my turn I reminded her of the teachers' protest I'd first seen her at the previous fall, and the ardent student activist who'd cast off the City Council Member for their disappointing budget vote. She remembered the incident well, and even recalled the student activist by name, someone I'd seen around at other protests that summer and fall.
But she also cringed and expressed sympathy for the elected who couldn't sway the crowd. I had to laugh and got as far as saying, "Well..." before she conceded that a politician had to answer for their vote. I got the feeling that the alliance she represented between reformer progressives and the radical movement was still mostly an alliance of opportunity. I remember hoping it would last, but also overheard some things at the event that made me shake my head at the constant backbiting of the NYC left.
May 8th I finally finished and posted my write-up for December 2020 / January 2021. This was a bit like letting the genie out of the bottle. Or maybe opening Pandora's Box. In many ways it was cathartic, but it laid the seeds for other anxiety, paranoia, and resentment that would grow and eventually consume me. I still hadn't developed enough distance from it, still choking through my retelling and still feeling it all. I wonder how many of my memories are clear from the day, or were re-formed as I wrote that piece. Probably a bit of both. Anyway.
I headed back into Kensington on May 9th for a second wave of postering for Brandon West. This was a part of Brooklyn I'd never spent much time in despite having lived in surrounding neighborhoods for nearly a decade. Despite the contested usefulness of the tactic, I see how a campaign could really make use of this outreach and touchpoints. Looking back I wished I could've stepped up a bit more in making those connections in this area, because at this point the campaign was spreading thin. But then again, so was I.
On May 11th I joined thousands of New Yorkers in Midtown Manhattan to protest the atrocities unfolding in the predominantly Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah in Jerusalem. Beyond the clear humanitarian crisis, I am proud of my Jewish heritage and have long considered the treatment of Palestinians by the Israeli state to be a profound disgrace and a shanda, and have supported the BDS movement to put international pressure on Israel to change.
It was during this time, leading up to that protest and in the weeks following, that I had to yet again revise my understanding of the region. I can't claim to be the greatest expert, nor have perfect answers or solutions. But for all I'd learned about the plight of the Jewish people, the horrors of the Holocaust, the founding of Israel and its defensive wars; for all I'd noted the problematic colonialism of the early Zionists, or the geopolitical machinations of the great empires -- I had never learned about the Nakba. Nor had I quite understood that the current settlements, so alarming in raw cell phone video, were just the latest in a legacy of forceful displacement.
It's humbling to be faced, in my adulthood, with the images and histories that were glossed over in the relatively simple story of Israel's founding that I'd received in school, and what I gathered from my half-Jewish, non-observant upbringing. My main thought of Israel growing up was whether I'd take my birthright trip, which I didn't. I'd seen maps of dwindling Palestinian territory, but even that obscures the hundreds of villages erased and replaced. The observance occurs annually on May 15th, when I was still processing all this history. It reaffirms my conviction that states are inherently violent, in their formation and perpetuation, and my ideals, politics, and faith are sound in looking beyond them.
Above: The scene when I arrived outside the Israeli embassy in Manhattan. Most of my comrades arrived on the other side of the street, where I was "supposed" to be. The ardent Zionist counter-protesters were dwarfed by the turnout.
That day I gathered with Palestinians, Jews, Christians, people of all stripes. When I arrived, I couldn't tell which side of the street was supposed to be pro-Palestinian, because both corners were full of waving flags and chanting back and forth the same support. The sidewalks eventually became overwhelmed and people on either side burst past railings and police to meet in the middle and redouble the chants. I couldn't see if the road had been safely blocked yet by bike marshals, but from the inside it felt entirely spontaneous.
We marched across Midtown from the embassy and then up to Columbus Circle. At one point there was an altercation near the back and the crowd was separated. Recalling violent police kettles, and seeing NYPD now circling seeming to wait for the clean split, I lingered between the groups wishing they'd remain united before running to rejoin the forward crowd. I'd later find out a protester had defended himself from an agitator, but thankfully the circumstances were clear and the crowd was sufficient that the police couldn't detain him despite initial attempts.
What bothered me about the incident was that as I lingered to see what was going on, aware of the high stakes and trying to take seriously the chant that, "We keep us safe," there were protest marshals, some seemingly self-appointed, waving the back crowd along to keep up with the main one, instead of going the other way and calling ahead to pause and regroup. One person was doing laps in the street shouting, "This has nothing to do with why we're here! Keep moving!" I asked them repeatedly if they knew what was going on, as there was a sizeable crowd and wall partially obscuring the action. They finally stopped and just said, "No," before continuing to corral people.
But in fact, it had everything to do with why we were there. The NYPD famously trains with the Israeli military, and even has an overseas branch in Kfar Saba. Just one of the 14 international intelligence posts that our $11 billion-per-year local police force has: totally normal, and definitely safe for our Palestinian and otherwise already hyper-surveilled Muslim communities. Truly, the occupations of our city and Palestinian territory are more than metaphorically connected. We have to keep each other safe from the same dehumanizing protocols and brutal control of these state forces.
Above: Remnants of the march rallying outside the entrance of Central Park. I'm not sure which of the several groups it was.
While the energy and overall solidarity was palpable, and the words of young Palestinian activists rang clearly as we closed at Columbus Circle, I could sense some friction between various groups and individual organizers. It felt a little bit like the early days of the uprising, when networks were still figuring out how to work together, uneven political education creating discontinuities and organic leaders thrust into the spotlight navigating their natural egos and good intentions.
It's tragic to think that as I'm writing this now eight months later Sheikh Jarrah is back in the news because the cruel, illegal displacement continues. So it goes.
There were weeks mid-month that typified my taking on too much. I attended a couple of different Defund planning & strategy meetings, but while I had my fingers in a lot of pies I'm not sure how much I really contributed. And then on May 20th I attended the kick-off for a fascinating project through the Religion & Socialism Working Group, the Religious Leader Interview Project, preparing to do just that. Truly some of the warmest and most interesting people I've met in DSA yet.
I continued to table for Defund on May 15th, and on May 22nd I was joined by a contingent of volunteers from Staten Island who traveled all the way to Crown Heights to get experience talking about abolition and managing one of the tables, with a plan to start up tabling in their own borough. Unfortunately NYC-DSA doesn't have a huge presence in Staten Island, and since the spring there's been major structural changes within the chapter to better organize those members.
Below: My sartorially superior volunteers from Staten Island. I was bummed we had to use the backup sign; I'd lost the original one while carting the table to and fro. Whoever picked it and the backpack up got a lot of Defund palm cards!
The entire story of how I found myself on the morning of May 28th in Midtown at the Morales Union protest might take an entire post of its own. A lot had changed in the few weeks since I'd attended that chummy event. I hadn't given a ton of my own volunteer time and so wasn't that close to the campaign, so the meltdown first came to my awareness when the campaign manager, who I'd met back in January through DSA and was one of the reasons I was an ardent supporter, resigned. She'd tried to stand up for staff, but had been shut down.
Long story short, the alliance with the movement had been broken. The staff and volunteers were overworked; certain higher-ups were causing problems and when pressed and caught off guard Dianne chose them over the rest of the staff. People jeered at the young organizers who formed a sort of solidarity union and stood together against their boss, challenging her to step up to the values they were campaigning on. I'd joined the Morales Union Slack for supporters and organizers, and though I saw the messy internal dynamics myself I wanted to show my solidarity and turned out to the event, and also donated to their aid fund when 40-plus staff were eventually mass-terminated.
Above: Members of the Morales Union and (soon-to-be) former staff of the campaign gathering in Bryant Park after the brief action: a short walk on the sidewalk, a nonconfrontational demo outside the office, and returned here before police were involved to answer follow-up press inquiries.
It's in those times that I am overcome by the stakes of what actually lies ahead of us and am wounded by the smug cynicism of allies masquerading as practicality or wisdom, especially from so-called radicals. Some of the fired staff ended up on the Maya Wiley campaign, which was all well and good. In the end I don't think the Morales meltdown played any more of a role in giving us Eric Adams than Yang's whole Bradley Tusk-backed campaign, or Kathryn Garcia choosing to ally with a sinking Yang over Wiley in the endgame, or Wiley's own many missteps. (...or the entire state and media apparatus's literally allergic reaction to abolition.) I'm still glad we tried.
Memorial Day Weekend I was faced with a close family member in the hospital, which for my already overstimulated nervous system was becoming a bit too much to bear. But on May 30th, in the depths of my anxiety and isolation awaiting news from the doctors I found solace in finally replanting the chestnuts that had been stored overlong in my fridge since the fall. There's a forthcoming article doing a deep dive on this project, so for now I'll just say that it meant a lot that weekend to be able to plant my soon-to-be "emotional support forest."
Below: Almost all the Chinese chestnuts sprouted and had long, confused shoots wondering wtf was going on still cold in May. I separated them into a series of small containers and one larger one.
On the last day of the month and Memorial Day itself, May 31st, the DefundNYPD campaign kicked off our Week of Action in the Vale of Cashmere in Prospect Park. It was a beautiful day, and the plan was to have a large direct action group training for the chapter, enjoy some radical family theater, and have a community picnic in the park before settling into a week of phonebanks and poli-ed, culminating in a massive rally and coalition march the following weekend. We were hoping to gather support and help reignite the scene in advance of the June push.
I was already feeling out of sorts because of everything going on personally, and I considered skipping the event even though it was just a walk through the park. Eventually I shook off the doldrums and made my way up. I arrived near the end of the training, just before the family theater presentation: Auntie Fa and the Three Little Pigs. There'd been some talk of preparing a bit more and trying to canvass the park and pull in families to supplement the friendly audience, but sadly with so much going on that didn't pan out. It really is a super cute and potent little piece, though. "Care, not cops!" we cried as we blew the prisons down.
It was at that picnic that I first met face-to-face many of the people I'd been working closely with for months through Zoom. I was still so desperately desocialized by the pandemic, and looking back I cringe at how obviously tweaked out I was, but still it helped ease my dissociation to finally interact IRL with these people and have some solid social fun together. Overall it was a wholesome and lovely day, even with the small fleet of NYPD patrol cars parked on the path above the Vale to openly, brazenly monitor our festivities.
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At this point I have the rest of the year's posts mostly outlined. I intend to follow through on getting them written so that my January post can properly set my February intentions!