Our a16 Wesleyan Goes To Washington Getting Ready The week leading up to was a frenzy of activity. Wesleyan activists were drowning in e-mails and phone calls. Through training sessions, we learned medical procedures, the philosophy of nonviolence, and legal solidarity tactics. The number of Wes students participating grew from 80 to 150. We were fully aware that we were risking arrest, physical harm, and missed classes. Soon, our affinity groups were meeting at odd hours and debating what type of clothes are best to get to get tear-gassed in: cotton or synthetics? We made multiple runs to Pelton’s to buy last minute first-aid supplies.JM The day before the action, I did legal training in a church basement. A team of young lawyers briefed us on our rights and led us through role-playing exercises. We learned how to shut down the court system with jail solidarity. In the afternoon, I attended a medic’s training where we learned basic treatment for shock patients, what to expect from tear gas and pepper spray, and when to get a real paramedic or doctor. That evening our cluster had a strategy meeting. We learned what intersections we’d be blockading, what time we’d be getting there (6AM), and some chants and songs. JG Sat. 9:30pm: We went to a last minute training session on direct action. As the training session went on, people grew more and more fearful. The trainer detailed all the possible scenarios, including police brutality. I began to shake just thinking about someone with a U-lock around his neck. JM One thing that I noticed about this protest, and maybe it is the same with any heavily-policed protest, is that the focus became very centered around the police. Our fears, our strategies for dealing with them, and our actual interactions with the police had nothing to do with the IMF. We could have spent the time before the action sharing what we knew about the IMF and discussing why each of us were there. Instead, we spent most of Saturday learning how to protect ourselves from the cops and how to understand the legal system. SKG Saturday night I stayed with my affinity group at Peter's house. His sister had a spaghetti dinner waiting for us when we got back from the meetings. The first thing Peter’s father said when he met us was "you guys need hugs." That was exactly what we all needed. We found out that Peter's friend Josh, who had come down to DC to work on a film, had been caught in a mass arrest—everyone, it seemed, was at risk So we prepared. We wrote the legal team’s phone number in permanent marker on our arms. We soaked bandanas in vinegar for protection in case the police used tear gas. We mixed “Seattle Solution” eye-rinse--water, anti-detergent, and saline. We pocketed mineral oil and rubbing alcohol for treating skin exposed to pepper spray. We washed our bodies and clothes with anti-detergent--it was supposed to help protect us from absorbing the chemicals of the pepper spray. I made one more sign: "No Globalization Without Representation." By 3:00 AM, we were getting ready for bed. When we were all lying down, Peter said he wanted to read us something. He read us the first page of Martin Luther King’s "I Have a Dream" speech. I only got an hour and a half of sleep that night. SKG Sunday We marched past rows of cop cars to get to our intersection. It was a strategic location—we were directly west of the IMF and World Bank buildings. Twelve students, mostly from Wesleyan, had lockboxes, and made a circle in the middle of the intersection. Four people laid down in the middle and U-locked their necks together. At least a hundred students interlocked arms and made a circle around them. Other affinity groups sealed off the rest of the intersection—blocking passage on the street and sidewalk. My affinity group went with two others to the end of the street where we linked arms to block off a police barricade. For most of the morning we stood around, chanting and cheering and turning people away from our blockade. Throughout the day, marching bands, street theater groups, and bands of radical cheerleaders passed through. The early morning excitement wore off as we chatted, ate Power Bars, braided hair and played frisbee in the street. JM A GW frat house down on the block that we were blockading had a big banner hanging from it that read: "GW Delts. American Capitalists and Proud Of It." We didn't really have any major confrontations with GW students (although the fact that we were blocking off their street left them understandably pissed off)—we generally let them through our lines. As a group passed, I heard one mutter: "Jesus, I've never seen such a bunch of fucking freaks in my whole life." I mean, personally, I'd never seen such a bunch of freaks either, but I was on their side. I was a freak to those GW guys. Everyone in that intersection was a freak. The frat guys were playing a song about America being great on their sound system and dancing shirtless with a huge American flag on their front porch. Some protesters went and talked with them about it. It was a P.C.U moment. HNJ I was able to speak to some IMF delegates face to face, as reporters crowded around. The French delegation, whom I spoke with, seemed mystified as to why so many people were showing an interest in their work all of a sudden. All of them seemed surprised that we were actually informed about the issues. One reporter, speaking to a group of us, kept insisting the protesters were just out to have a good time--but he pointed to each of us, saying “Well, not you. And not you. Of course not you. I don’t mean you.” So who did he mean? ASO The sun was getting hot, and the lockdowns were sweating. I worked to give them water, wash faces off, feed them crumbs of granola bars. Most had diapers on. Periodically someone would show up with news. They’d communicate it with a repeat-after-me sequence: everyone who heard them had to repeat the news in unison so that the entire intersection could hear. For example: repeat after me, REPEAT AFTER ME, there has just been word, THERE HAS JUST BEEN WORD, that protesters were tear-gassed,THAT PROTESTERS WERE TEAR-GASSED, at 14th and I street, AT 14TH AND I STREET. Hold tight for more information, HOLD TIGHT FOR MORE INFORMATION. You guys are doing great, I love you, YOU GUYS ARE DOING GREAT, I LOVE YOU. JG Violence The police bus pulled up around noon. We’d scarcely seen a squad car all morning, and we were off our guard. Everyone in the lockdown circle stood up to see what was going on, which was the worst thing we possibly could have done. The police came off the bus running, and formed a riot line a few feet from our circle. None of them were wearing badges. They didn’t even order us to clear the area--one shouted “Let’s do this,” and they charged us, nightsticks first. In the training sessions, they told us that you’re supposed to sit down when the police charge you—that way they can’t push people around, knock them over, and start a stampede. Our lock-circle was standing, staring stupidly at the riot visors and shouting for support when they hit us. People’s arms started twisting inside the lock-boxes, and they started screaming. A couple unhooked. A soft line formed around us and starting shouting for us to sit down. I sat. The riot officer in front of me looked over at someone who’d just pulled out of his lockbox, looked at me, and drove his nightstick into my face. I don’t know quite what happened next. I was bleeding, screaming, trying to get my arms out of the boxes and figure out where my glasses had landed. There were so many cameras snapping it sounded like machine-gun rounds. When I unhooked my right hand, I saw Sasha, reeling and bleeding, pulling her hand out from the other side. The police backed off—I don’t know why—and a second later I was behind the lines, two medics were taking care of me, and a legal observer was interrogating me in the most apologetic tone imaginable. In the emergency room, they put seven stitches in my face and told me my nose was broken. Sasha had a broken nose and was missing a third of one of her front teeth. And in the hospital waiting room, we watched the network news shows laud the DC police for their restraint. BET Less than five minutes after the police struck, they were gone. The intersection filled with a roving parade of giant puppets and Wesleyan’s Hot Snappy Bombastic Marching Band. Everyone started dancing, and we re-claimed the space in a joyous moment of sanctification. DF At another intersection, I saw two police officers on motorcycles knock over a line of protestors. They ran people over. Then, when they were surrounded by the people they’d just tried to run down, they started swinging their clubs. I know that many people in the world, especially people of color in the U.S., face the reality of police violence every day I am reminded of my work last summer organizing Mexican farmworkers--then, when the cops arrived, I had to remember that they weren't there to help me. But somehow in Washington the lesson was made even more personal when my heart was racing with the fear that the cops would beat me too. KH The Legal Rally What makes me mad is how the legal rally has gotten little to no publicity. The media has (unsurprisingly) made a16 seem like just a day when some rowdy hippies came in and marched around for a while--they ignore the fact that there were at least as many people on the Ellipse as there were in the streets, people who were there to show their support for IMF-WB reform. My father went to the legal rally and he said that he just felt like the space was full of this great energy, that people there were really aware of what was going on and the work that needed to be done. It makes me angry that Joe Schmo in Idaho, if he watches mainstream media, will know all about those crazy anarchists, but not about that energy. HNJ We joined thousands of people flooding the streets, banners flashing, gigantic puppets rising up above the crowd, a huge sun woman parading through the sky with liberty inscribed on her forehead. The bodies pulsated, chanting, rising and falling in unison. Chants of "this is what democracy looks like" resonated through the streets. as people of all shapes, sizes and colors, joined together to participate in the making of this world. I have never looked straight into the mosaic eyes of democracy before. This experience fleshed out all the theories of activism--the passion moved out of the classroom and took form in the streets. LK