Slow The Tape And See

I’ve joined the occasional march on Martin Luther King Jr. Day and partaken in vigils protesting state killing for much of my adult life, but I’ve only recently joined nonviolent demonstrations in which people have been arrested. I haven’t figured out how to talk about it yet, but recent events compel me to try to make some distinctions that might be lost on a number of folks my age and older who are inclined to believe elected officials and aspirers to public office who speak of “Antifa scum” or “social justice” mobs. I took the above photo outside the Tennessee State Capitol on the tenth of August to chronicle the fact of Tennessee Representative G.A. Hardaway responding kindly and calmly to a member of our company.

Here’s Representative Antonio Parkinson responding graciously to my request for a photo:

There were representatives who were less inclined to respond to our requests that they not vote in favor Governor Bill Lee’s legislation which criminalized nonviolent assemblies outside the Capitol at night, and some of us followed them to their cars in an effort to engage them in conversation. One could characterize that effort as a form of public scolding, but I think this is part of what a citizen seeks and agrees to when seeking and holding elected office. We weren’t a mob. We were unarmed. But we were admittedly vulnerable to whatever aspersions or mischaracterizations those who claim to represent our will might make. I have an example.

Rep. Jeremy Faison @JeremyFaison4TN

On my way down the tunnel from the Capitol and feel this large group of @TNHighwayPatrol behind me. They are headed to let my colleagues out of the garage. Protesters are blocking. My bet is on the Troopers. THP > Protestors

This is the selfie Representative Jeremy Faison took inside the building while we waited to speak to him. Why would a grown man think he needs an armed guard to protect himself from having to talk to the people who pay his way? Why so easily spooked? And if he isn’t scared, why would he feel compelled to frame the situation in this way? The narrative he offers is one in which armed men and women are set up against the unarmed men and women their sworn to serve. Protesters are only “blocking” in the sense that they’re waiting to speak to their own employees. There’s nothing quite like the power of decree. When we surrender it to someone else, we’ve surrendered our right and our ability to perceive who is and isn’t behaving reasonably.

Josh Hawley @HawleyMO

.@washingtonpost this morning printing outright lies from the Antifa group who now describe themselves as sweet angels. BS. You screamed through bullhorns, shouted down my wife when she asked you to leave, vandalized property, pounded on our door, and terrorized neighbors

This is young Senator Hawley of Missouri. Like State Representative Faison, he knows there’s power to be accrued by demonizing people who are trying to talk to you, but this is disinformation which endangers the lives of his own constituents. Disinformation has a way of wearing down a person’s already stretched thin bandwidth so that they despair of ever knowing what really happened. I’m driven to a degree of despair myself when I think of the millions of Americans who will read his tweet and not know or even want to try to know what really happened. “Antifa” serves as a trigger word which serves to shut down thinking, but it doesn’t have to. We have a long, kind of boring, but also kind of inspiring video of the lovely group of people who met in a parking lot and then moseyed over to Senator Hawley’s D.C. residence to speak their peace. Watch, skim, skip ahead, or let it run while you’re doing other things. But please don’t deploy the words, “mob,” “riot,” or “Antifa,” in regard to their action if you don’t want to follow up on what actually occurred. That would be exceedingly irresponsible.

And boosting Senator Hawley’s mischaracterization of what these citizens were up to serves to incite violence against them. They are plainclothes patriots taking on a risk by daring to take up responsibility in an impromptu, sometimes awkward fashion. They aren’t attacking, blasting, or demonstrating a show of force. They’re speaking to an adult as fellow adults. In a nation of equals, this is the deal.

I offer this motley crew some of the highest praise I have: They are beautiful nerds armed with signs, candles, and a copy of the Constitution. They reminded me of the artisan-activists I met over the summer with Teens for Equality and The People’s Plaza. Many of them were publicly derided by Governor Bill Lee and Senator Marsha Blackburn, but they kept at it and we can too. And as ever, our elected officials can rethink their positions and apologize at any time. Don’t let someone else do your thinking for you when it comes to questions of law and order. Slow the tape and see.