"Protesting, Day 2 - 11.6.08: Triumphs and Disappointments"

Day 2 brought us to the beloved Mormon church on Overland and Santa Monica Blvd, in the city of the Bruins - Westwood, CA. I had planned to be there on time, but it took me 20 minutes to exit off the 405 North at Santa Monica Boulevard heading west. Oh, and I had to find parking. So, instead of being there right at 2pm, my 5 hours of Movement didn't start until 2:25pm, PST. Better late than never, right? Right.

Even before I'd exited the freeway, I already got my first of the day's hundreds of supportive honks for the No On 8 Cause because of the bumper sticker I'd forgotten that I put on my vehicle recently. When I quickly realized this car's freeway honks were friendly and not full of random road rage, I obnoxiously honked back with the same vigor, held up one of my No On 8 signs and smiled...

...Still took me another 10 minutes to move from that spot as I exited toward Santa Monica, which is intense; on a good day, from that point to the Boulevard would take only 10 seconds. I wasn't angry, though. I knew why it was slow. It was the first time in all my times being in 405 traffic, HEAVY traffic, when I was at peace. I was anxious to arrive, but I knew that this traffic was, ironically, a result of the Movement I was so slowly inching toward to regroup with.

I exited finally and got closer to the golden statue figure I saw a few minutes east in the sky. The Church of the Latter Day Saints. The golden beacon to which thousands of No On 8 supporters would convene beneath that day. The beacon I'd passed by so many times in my six years of driving with an intriguing interest to visit someday. Little did I know that my visit would come in the form of protest on November 6, 2008. Now, I don't mind religion, or no religion for that matter; but when you step on any person's humane rights, then you're stepping on the wrong toes, and I just can't not say anything or do anything about it. I've always been kind of stubborn that way.

When I came up on Santa Monica Boulevard and Overland, I looked out of my car window and saw the people and the energy that was starting to collect outside of the church. I later found that at this same time, the press conferences had already begun as well. I drove around and finally found parking a block east of Overland and just north of Olympic, and on my walk up I got another positive car honk, told them to roll down their window and gave them handshakes and one of the extra signs I had for the day. "Peace, kids!" was my final retort to them as they drove away on their search for parking.

Immediately when I got to the meeting site outside the church, the energy was in full force. I joined one of my friends who did the West Hollywood ("WeHo") march with me the night before (see blog #1 - "Today I took to the streets, I protested, Another wish come true: My story of Obama and Homosexual Pride '08"), and her girlfriend whom was not able to be there the first night, though she watched as our first night of protesting got coverage on the likes of CNN. The three of us, along with the first 500-1000 early protesters, all shouted various catchy chants (like, "Gay, Straight, Black or White, Marriage is a Civil Right"), and exchanged hugs, energy and passion. There were even snacks and water. I had a gig later that night to be at, so I made sure to pack everything in case we started to traverse Westwood today. Something told me to bring some good walking shoes, too, and I'm glad I did; when there is TrailMix, there's a long hike involved.

I'd say we were all able to contain ourselves for about an hour after I arrived before the first leg of the march began.

We started slowly, going around the perimeter of the church, stopping many times, as the members inside the property of the church looked at us from atop their hill - shadowy, omniscient, eerie-like still figures that appeared almost mirage-like in a way. They were taking pictures and holding up binoculars atop that hill (one man so creepily even looked like he was a sniper standing at a high point atop the church), while we marched 'round the perimeter shouting "Shame on You" and calling out to them to "Come Down and Talk to Us". Of course, that didn't happen. So we marched. And we marched. After the first loop around we came back to the front of the church and made the plan to head to Sepulveda Boulevard (right near the 405 freeway), going west on Santa Monica. We ended up deciding to head to Westwood Blvd and go north.

We wanted Wilshire.

The journey to Westwood Boulevard and Wilshire Avenue was long. I was fortunate to be somewhat near the front through all of it, and I tell you, it was something else. At one point we saw three Yes on 8 supporters get out of the truck they were stuck in traffic in going south on Westwood Boulevard, who'd flipped the bird to us, shouted "Faggots" and then gotten provoked by some of our group of protesters who'd thrown water onto the back window of their vehicle. One of the protesters got pummeled, and later that evening I found out that he had gotten punched in the face, and his arm was also bandaged. At the time of the incident, my friends and I looked on and decided not to add to the chaos, because, well, we thought the guy was truthfully being kicked to death. There would be no need to add to the flames, though it was hard not to want to go in there and do something. We made sure we were all there and kept it Moving.

We stopped outside a bank heading north on Westwood Boulevard at one point, and the cops just weren't having it anymore. Being in the front, I remember hearing the sirens, then seeing one, two, ...four, ..., then ten police cars, heading toward us. Police in riot gear, too. With batons. Running straight toward us. I remember shouting in my very hoarse voice, "Sit down!" and someone else with a better voice said "Sit Down". We all started saying "Sit Down", and as the Police brigade came closer, a wave hit from the front of the line to the back, as we all sat down, so as to not provoke anything unwarranted. We sat. We sat. And we sat.

Then we stood.

It all gets a bit foggy, but at some point a Policeman talked to one of the protesters as we shouted "Let us Go" and "Some Policemen are Gay, Too", and I guess he told the protester that the Police would let us go forward, but that from now until the end of the night, they would be strictly escorting us through the streets. They were letting us go to Wilshire Boulevard.

We arrived at the intersection, danced, cheered and chanted. One guy even had a portable IPod docking station and his playlist included everything from Christina Aguilera to 70s power political funk songs. It was a nice respite to have a lil' music nudging us on. A small drum circle formed, and outside of the circle but keeping with their beat, I even jammed on the streets with my two drumsticks, hitting rhythms I don't think I ever thought I could possibly hit. Soon, we sat down in the middle of the Wilshire/Westwood intersection; which anyone whose driven it can vouch for its easy ability to be a very busy intersection. Especially at the onset of rush hour. I remember thinking once what would happen if this intersection were to ever get shut down. Well, now I know. As we stood and started to walk east on Wilshire, people were forced to stop and sit in their cars and watch-and-wait. People were forced by our energy to also join us and march. They were forced to be still. They were forced to move. Walking east on Wilshire for 10 minutes, I had the greatest memory. For some reason this walk was familiar. I'd remembered that when I was around 14 or so, I was a computer camp counselor in training at UCLA and had walked this route one day to bring a sick ex-girlfriend some soup. Don't get me wrong; if I'd known then that the walk would take two hours from UCLA to Beverly Hills, not the thirty minutes we both had estimated, I would have probably said nevermind. But, now I see that all those years ago was just a foreshadow for today. I texted her and reminded her about that time when I walked to her around this same time of day/night, but told her the disclaimer that I didn't have soup this time; but then again, now I did have thousands of people with me. Synchronistically enough, after texting her, I found out that she's working on her final application for the Sheriff's Department this weekend.

My two friends and I finished our part of rallying a little after 7 pm. People were heading to West Hollywood, but we had a performance to get to. Plus, aside from TrailMix and water, we'd all not eaten anything since breakfast. Right before we left, there were Mormon church-members who were adamant about taking down the signs we'd posted on their gates, ripping them down angrily and cursing the fact that we'd been there all day. By this time, the vast majority of protesters had already ventured toward WeHo, with many still at the church witnessing these last events as we all decided silently to stay at the church for more hours, or call it a day. Though we all would have loved to stay until the very end, a lot of us had to get to school, to our professions, to the other parts of our lives already scheduled before we decided to take to the streets on Wednesday evening.

Reflecting on the last 48 hours, I can't help be a little disappointed, though. I am angry that I've only seen about 12 Blacks out on the front-lines in the past two days. Sure, my calculation may be off, but to a certain degree, the number 12 doesn't seem too far-fetched. I'd grown increasingly angry that I kept sporadically overhearing mostly white gay males over the first two days of protest cursing Black people for their 70% Yes on 8 vote. Finally, I'd heard one comment too many, and sought out one of the protesters who, though not an organizer of today's event, could be seen as definitely a leader. I expressed my want to do something like this in the Black communities, more so, the Crenshaw Christian Center. She said, "sure", but then immediately (and in her most polite way possible) basically conveyed her fears of "tension" between the people we'd be protesting near (blacks) and our protesters (mostly white and male). I felt angry, but I took her number and told her to make sure she followed up with me, because I was going to text her right away to tell her to email me so we could get on it.

I doubt she'll actually follow-up, who knows. I'll try my other outlets and see what happens. But, her fears are the reason why many whites, let alone gay whites, never go farther south than Santa Monica Boulevard - Sunset Boulevard if they could get away with it. Though below Santa Monica Boulevard there is a Los Angeles filled with rich culture and diversity, indoctrinated leeriness to venture outside of ComfortLand has only caused more of the social rifts of Southern California. I, too, am at fault, though I am getting to know that these cultured nooks and crannies are quite accepting, when given the chance.

Of course there have only been 12 Blacks out there in 48 hours - they won't show up to a party whose hosts are predominately the same people that would never show up to theirs either. It's sickening to know that gays, black and white, just don't hang out more in general. It's another issue that needs to be nipped in the bud. But, regardless, I don't condone the white population scorning and putting down the Black population for voting Yes, when it's not like the Whites truly were out there to outreach to them out of fear. Similarly, though, I don't condone the black population for also not doing outreach in the black communities out of fear, myself included (though I did volunteer at a Black/Latino Polling place for No On 8 on election day, and told my black family and neighbors to Vote No). I also don't condone Blacks discriminating against the gay Movement, especially when we as a people should know better for many reasons, two of which are slavery then and being on the down-low now.

Have not the black population opened their eyes yet to the fact that the Black Aids rate in American has become its own Nation, a Nation higher than the population of many African Aids Nations combined, because we are too ignorant to speak about it? Gay or straight, in the black communities we'd rather die from down-low, unprotected, uneducated diseases in our community, then come out and speak up, putting a face to the thousands and millions of Blacks that are homosexual. We'd rather stay silenced than put aside our pettiness and fears and march, regardless of if you hang with the whites or not. Similarly, the whites would rather not try to tackle the Black community for "fear of tension". Screw that. It'll take more effort in the pre-organization than say a WeHo march, or even a Westwood march, but if we start now and get the LAPD on our side, then it's possible to have just a peaceful demonstration in the Black communities. Maybe I'm just overly optimistic, but it would not hurt to have a plan, structure a specific time slot and do what we are doing in the Black communities. We'll have less time to just rome in an impromptu way, but at least we'll be out there showing that this issue, truly is for all of us. I mean, they say if you can make it in New York , you can make it anywhere... So let's go to the tough places and try shaking things up there, too. It won't be easy, but we won't be cowards, either. And, truth be told, I don't care where you protest... Protesting can be a frightening thing anywhere at anytime, and it can get frightening unexpectedly, too.

If we're too sheltered to try to organize for the good of our gay community as a whole, I better not hear one more chant including "Gay, Straight, Black or White..." because obviously it really is not all-inclusive or else we'd all put aside fear in order for progress - Black, White, Straight or Gay.

Tonight, I'm in Long Beach. Honestly, I'm ill as all get-all, my voice is basically shot and my legs are tired. But tonight is my last night as a 24 year-old, and I'm determined to go into my 25th year tomorrow a woman with purpose. I'll have time to rest in about 75 years.

Peace...

Nova Jade*
11-7-08

djnovajade@gmail.com