Street Smarts: Protest Safety 101 Part One
When I look in the mirror, I see the scar above my eyebrow from a police baton, one eye squints a little more than the other from the several times I’ve been maced, and my hair is slowly frosting from decades of street-level protesting. My relationship with activism is the longest relationship I’ve ever had, and as time marches on, so do I; boots on the pavement, fist to the sky. The first time I went to a protest, I showed up looking like a tourist at a political Warped Tour. Black skinny jeans, black band tee, black Vans, long hair in my face, and a plucky can-do attitude. I didn’t know what a legal observer was, didn’t know the difference between a kettle and a barricade, and definitely didn’t know what to do when a line of riot cops suddenly marched in unannounced just like the movies. That was a long long time ago. Since then, I’ve marched, screamed,