Re: Toronto.
I am sorry, Toronto, about your baby trees.
I did that thing with the bandannas once and I'm never doing it again, and I'm not saying it wasn't because I'm privileged and the experience of police violence created too much cognitive dissonance for me to deal with at that point in my life. I wrote a story where I projected a combination of youthful romanticism about that world and actual experience of that world onto John Sheppard (while trying to deny any autobiographical thingamajigs at the time) and I shut the door on that one. I mean, I've worked for the po since. I feel very differently about some things now, and the same about some others. People change. You know how it is.
I will say that I knew some black bloc kids, and they were good kids. A lot of people involved in summit protests were committed, ethical human beings who I admired. I am not going to insult people who are currently getting beaten and arrested with my armchair activisting; I will say that there are reasons besides basic sell-outing that I don't do that anymore, but that doesn't change the fact that I met some really good people when that was my end of the world.
Sabotabby over on livejournal has some interesting coverage of the G20 protests from a bit closer to the other side of the bandanna, though as always, not necessarily the opinions of NPR or any of its member stations, if you know what I mean. It's good to have someone from the protester POV, though. Since from the outside it's all smoke and confusion.
I did that thing with the bandannas once and I'm never doing it again, and I'm not saying it wasn't because I'm privileged and the experience of police violence created too much cognitive dissonance for me to deal with at that point in my life. I wrote a story where I projected a combination of youthful romanticism about that world and actual experience of that world onto John Sheppard (while trying to deny any autobiographical thingamajigs at the time) and I shut the door on that one. I mean, I've worked for the po since. I feel very differently about some things now, and the same about some others. People change. You know how it is.
I will say that I knew some black bloc kids, and they were good kids. A lot of people involved in summit protests were committed, ethical human beings who I admired. I am not going to insult people who are currently getting beaten and arrested with my armchair activisting; I will say that there are reasons besides basic sell-outing that I don't do that anymore, but that doesn't change the fact that I met some really good people when that was my end of the world.
Sabotabby over on livejournal has some interesting coverage of the G20 protests from a bit closer to the other side of the bandanna, though as always, not necessarily the opinions of NPR or any of its member stations, if you know what I mean. It's good to have someone from the protester POV, though. Since from the outside it's all smoke and confusion.
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I wanted to let you know that I was thinking about it on Saturday, and today while I'm waiting for news about friends from a distance, because I didn't stick around, which I will admit feels pretty strange.
Because, yeah, I think one of the things that stuck out as true in that story was the way people change and the way that that changes how people are involved (or, I guess, if they are). And how weird it feels to see where you would have been x years ago, and to see new people just getting into it.
Anyway, thanks again for it. Romanticized it might be, but there's a lot of real in it too, and it's helped me work through some stuff.
Thanks for the link to sabotabby too, I'll check that out.
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... Also, it's just plain always flattering that someone else has found a story useful. It was good for me to write it; it was important to me, and it's really good to know it's treated other people well too.