Forms of direct action: Rallies

I was originally going to write about marches. I still will, but the march problem I was thinking about was actually a rally problem.

I was at University of Oregon when the police officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted. That was April 29th, 1992.

What happened in Eugene was nothing compared to what happened in Los Angeles, but it was still a big deal for us. It was also sadly pointless.

There was a rally in the student center courtyard that turned into a March on city hall. I was at the rally; I did not go on the march. Therefore, I was not there when they rushed the building and kicked in the front windows.

I say "windows", but really they were big glass panels, like you see on a lot of public buildings built in the 60s.

Honestly, I am amazed that there weren't a lot of injuries reported. Big breaking glass can be dangerous, but also the footage on the news of this mass of humanity moving up against the building looked like people could have been easily crushed.

I don't think anyone planned on that happening. When you start with anger, concentrate it and give it some exercise, it can build momentum.

I was angry about what happened to Rodney King and how many people justified it. I don't think that the Eugene city government made sense as a target.

I do remember that there was an incident of a Black man who was coming on a campus visit getting harassed at the Eugene airport. I don't remember now whether that was by police or airport employees, but there might have been an area for action there. If we wanted to organize against police brutality, we could have investigated the Eugene police department's history and petitioned the city for oversight or something like that. That long ago, we might even have been optimistic about police reform.

We could have marched to city hall to deliver a petition; that happens in a lot of marches. (I'll get there. Probably Tuesday.)

Rallies are good for creating energy, which is great if you have a way to harness that energy. Maybe you do it before canvassing a neighborhood or doing a park cleanup or something that is a lot of work so needs some excitement to carry it through.

The way this post doesn't work with the others is that I am trying to suggest things other than protests that people can do. I am leery enough about rallies that I don't see myself recommending one in the foreseeable future.

It's still important to write about for a few reasons.

• Since rallies can serve a purpose, the information should at least be out there..
• Sometimes we might not be planning on a rally specifically, but there are elements there where you could develop that same energy, which you don't want to do without consideration. Partly, we just need to be more informed.
• Rallies are very popular on the right. They don't harness that energy in productive ways so it then walks around as aggrieved racism. That is a dangerous situation.

Finally, for no reason whatsoever, I just want to mention that the most visible figure in the footage as the windows gave way was a confident white man who would spout off a lot, sometimes doing okay things but also saying some messed up things and feeling pretty good about himself. Then the news coverage varied between making him seem more dangerous than he actually was or doing wordplay with his last name.

I don't know why that seems pertinent.