A Public Diary During the Coronavirus/COVID-19 Pandemic ~ Day 91
A revolution is being televised although
not through your regular media broadcasting
it’s more of a social network spread event
which also brings, facial recognition software
that is being weaponized to target those rising up
Once again presenting a paradox to this process
pitting a desire to share the progress from our perspectives
whilst not wanting to jeopardize those at the forefront
Alas we must find a balance to combat this bullshit blackout
because Black Lives Matter can be heard far and wide
right now on the streets across these stolen lands
and the powers that be no longer can mute
the voices and this growing movement
for it has reached a powerful point
with an unstoppable momentum
which is carrying us all
towards this true
transformation
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Sunday, June 14th, 11:44pm here in the year 2020. How have we found ourselves over half way through this twelve month cycle already? And how in the hell could those first 6 months be filled with so much that is nearly impossible to believe? If someone would have been writing this all out as a story, in a novel or presented in a movie perhaps, most people would be reading or watching and thinking, well this is interesting, and certainly entertaining, but there’s no fucking possible way the world could play out like this. No racist, fascist in training president is going to schedule a rally on Juneteenth and in Tulsa, having all those who attend sign a waiver saying they cannot be held responsible if you contract COVID. People would understandably say that is too ridiculous and far fetched of a thing and it is insulting to their/our humanity to ask us to believe that shit would actually happen in real life. But here we are. Trump did postpone the rally and pushed it back a day after all the backlash, but still. What the flying tooting fuck is going on in this reality right now?
I already wrote about that rally a few days back and I guess it’s still fresh on my mind for a number of reasons. And also, after going out last night and after talking with people today who were tuning into the news this morning and who generally are pretty engaged in the goings on all noted they didn’t hear anything about the events of last night. OPB this morning over the course of the two hours my father-in-law listened after getting up said they didn’t even refer for a moment to what was going on downtown last night. And this evening, our neighbors, very kindly organized and hosted a front yard concert in which those on our street were able to come out and sit a safe distance apart and listen to this concert. Afterwards, we talked in these triangles and other geometric shapes as we checked in with each other, not having connected outside much in several months and especially since these past few weeks have been mighty wet and grey. Not favorable conditions for socializing outside. The conversations swirled around the shit show of public school and those three months before the school year ended this past week. And the other hot topic was the nationwide protests, of which numerous events have taken place in and around our neighborhood. That is where it was made clear that unless people were getting news and information about the larger events from their social media feeds, the news is basically not talking about it at all.
This makes perfect sense when we look at how connected the mainstream media is to capitalism and those few corporations who handle, and own, the vast majority of news outlets. Their agenda during late stage capitalism is pretty clear, distract and get folks to pay attention to literally anything other than this very inconvenient uprising that is happening all around them. And this brings me back around to the thoughts about facial recognition and the protests. And my own involvement in this movement as I’ve gone and taken videos and pictures from several of these events thus far. Last night was actually the first time I’d taken out the dSLR camera to capture some better quality photos and I’m glad I did that. This feels like an important point in our human story to be documenting. Though this is where the dynamic and difficulty is with sharing these photos and videos. John Oliver on Last Week Tonight this very evening did a whole segment on how fucking awful things have gotten with facial recognition software and how these artificial intelligence/ai software are scraping social media and collecting millions upon millions of pictures and scanning them to add to their databases which are creating these massive stockpiles of profiles which the police and other agencies of violence and oppression are utilizing to target protestors. That’s pretty fucked up.
The level of dystopia that is playing out in real time at the moment is gettin a wee bit too visceral for me. What I witnessed out on the streets last night, combined with the general overall picture of what we’re going through with the pandemic and this presidency and all of it, is really and truly pretty fucking dystopian. I don’t recall mentioning it last night and for that matter, cannot even recall for the life of me any of the words that spilled out of me after that evenings events, but what is popping into my head, which further crystallizes this dystopian viewpoint is that I ended up walking through no less than 6 blocks of homeless encampment that had spread to both sides of the streets and up and down the surrounding blocks around Chinatown and that general area of southwest Portland. And the boarded up buildings and graffitied buildings everywhere is straight out of the movies. And I know this is happening all over the country. Which reminds me that I had heard about the Black person who was killed outside of a Wendy’s because the employees called the cops on him because they saw him sleeping, yes SLEEPING in his car and when they came to confront him, he got scared and tried to run and they shot and killed him. Then, as something of an appropriate response from where we find ourselves in the uprising, that Wendy’s was swiftly and in short order burned to the ground. Because fuck no we should not still be having these brutal murders and violence happening from the police forces. What we’re living through is an uprising against this police brutality and the systems of oppression that are attached to this and of course, capitalism in general, too. It’s all connected. The school to prison pipeline is real. Systemic racism is real and is absolutely a public health crisis. Thankfully states are responding to that and declaring it thusly. That is a good step in the right direction.
I know the skin I’m in saved my ass from getting totally fucked with by the police last night. After I separated from the thousands marching and decided to head home for the night, after walking through all those blocks with tents all around me, I got back to the car which was only a few blocks from the Justice Center, the area that is fenced off next to the court house and was/is the sight of the primary protesting at this point. There is an Autonomous zone that is perhaps going to be established in the coming days but not necessarily or likely from there if the cops keep their weapons drawn around those parts. Anyways, I managed to get back to the car safely and just after getting in, cop cars with sirens wailing and lights flashing were about to blast right by me as I was waiting to turn, right down the road they were coming up incidentally, I was at the corner, at a green light, getting ready to turn when the cop cars appeared out of nowhere, following no doubt police banter from the radio dispatcher telling them where to go, and as they zipped through this intersection, the very first car slowed down real slow and looked into my car and did a quick scan to I suppose assess whether I was a danger to them or not, I imagine they saw a white dude, looking reasonably well put together and instead of investigate further and pull me over, cop in that front car just gave little wave and then they blasted off full speed ahead before I even had time to process it as I was admittedly a bit nervous about the whole seen. That circumstance would not have happened if I was a person of color. Full stop. No pun intended.
Alright, I’m in one of those places again where exhaustion has utterly wiped me out. I had actually just did one of those dozing off bits again where I snapped awake and that means I need to wrap this up and get in bed now. That is precisely what I’m going to do. More check ins and reflections to come tomorrow…
