Promoting Peace, Not Pieces
A diary entry from a very good day in 2008:
I wondered if perhaps there had been a cancellation and I had missed it . . . I sat on the front steps of the empty Quaker hall, with no one out front, and decided that I certainly had time to see if the peace demonstration would materialize. When S. approached, I recognized him as one of the Quakers, but he did not know who I was and, assuming I was loitering, prepared to pass me on the stairs. I told him I was there for the demonstration, and he became happy and welcoming. For a meeting that started with a cold shoulder, he showed no reservation whatsoever in allowing me to accompany him into the empty hall to pick up signs. As we stood along North Charles, motorists honked, almost all in agreement with the peace message. I held up something that was definitely against the Iraq war rather than my usual middle of the road message about peace.
While we were there, the ranks filled out. I wanted to send a definite message, as I wanted to at the Roland WIB demonstration, that peace symbolism is not a white thing. The white marchers need to know that blacks care, and blacks who pass by need to know that they will be welcomed if they demonstrate. As frustratingly backward as Baltimore is in some respects, I must accept that Baltimore is not Seattle or San Fran. While a city that is mostly black would have enormous diversity within the black population, esoteric black people don’t really stick out.
Heh. Maybe we do all look alike.
Since most of the motorists were nonwhite, I suppose I could assume that most of the support we got for the message was also nonwhite. A young white guy gave us the finger. I laughed to S. that we got half a peace sign. I don’t think he had ever heard that idiom before.
We were joined by another black woman who appeared close to my age, or at least in her forties. I saw a brother in plaits and a baseball cap and missed my opportunity to ask him to join. Otherwise, it would never occur to him. It dawned on me three seconds too late that it would send a powerful message to see black men demonstrate for peace. If I could get him to stand next to me for five minutes while I numbed him with stories about my sons in Seattle, hundreds of motorists would be influenced by the sight of him while the poor fellow wracked his brain to figure out how to get away from me.
However, since there is still a lot of racism on both sides here, it would require explicit outreach to get black guys on board, because people avert their gaze to avoid confrontation and I imagine if you're a young brother, it is easy to assume no one is interested in having you participate. This happens in spades (ahem) among men, both black and white, who I see being severely iced in public by each other and across racial and gender lines. Sad, but better than abuse.
Too bad my sons were not visiting from the Left Coast. Perhaps our perfect little family could have saved Baltimore today.
I wondered if perhaps there had been a cancellation and I had missed it . . . I sat on the front steps of the empty Quaker hall, with no one out front, and decided that I certainly had time to see if the peace demonstration would materialize. When S. approached, I recognized him as one of the Quakers, but he did not know who I was and, assuming I was loitering, prepared to pass me on the stairs. I told him I was there for the demonstration, and he became happy and welcoming. For a meeting that started with a cold shoulder, he showed no reservation whatsoever in allowing me to accompany him into the empty hall to pick up signs. As we stood along North Charles, motorists honked, almost all in agreement with the peace message. I held up something that was definitely against the Iraq war rather than my usual middle of the road message about peace.
While we were there, the ranks filled out. I wanted to send a definite message, as I wanted to at the Roland WIB demonstration, that peace symbolism is not a white thing. The white marchers need to know that blacks care, and blacks who pass by need to know that they will be welcomed if they demonstrate. As frustratingly backward as Baltimore is in some respects, I must accept that Baltimore is not Seattle or San Fran. While a city that is mostly black would have enormous diversity within the black population, esoteric black people don’t really stick out.
Heh. Maybe we do all look alike.
Since most of the motorists were nonwhite, I suppose I could assume that most of the support we got for the message was also nonwhite. A young white guy gave us the finger. I laughed to S. that we got half a peace sign. I don’t think he had ever heard that idiom before.
We were joined by another black woman who appeared close to my age, or at least in her forties. I saw a brother in plaits and a baseball cap and missed my opportunity to ask him to join. Otherwise, it would never occur to him. It dawned on me three seconds too late that it would send a powerful message to see black men demonstrate for peace. If I could get him to stand next to me for five minutes while I numbed him with stories about my sons in Seattle, hundreds of motorists would be influenced by the sight of him while the poor fellow wracked his brain to figure out how to get away from me.
However, since there is still a lot of racism on both sides here, it would require explicit outreach to get black guys on board, because people avert their gaze to avoid confrontation and I imagine if you're a young brother, it is easy to assume no one is interested in having you participate. This happens in spades (ahem) among men, both black and white, who I see being severely iced in public by each other and across racial and gender lines. Sad, but better than abuse.
Too bad my sons were not visiting from the Left Coast. Perhaps our perfect little family could have saved Baltimore today.
posted by Exxuendo at 8:49 AM
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