Surviving the RNC

author : Tovah Rudawski topic : Protest | Police brutality

by Tovah Rudawski

Minnesota: the oddly-shaped midwest state with ten thousand lakes, Lutherans galore, and hot dishes. Added to that list this September: an invasion of thousands of Republicans, busloads upon busloads swarming towards the Xcel Energy Center. Much to my dismay, my home state had been transformed into a terrifying police statem downtown St Paul playing the part of the locked down and gridded out battleground.

It is correct in every aspect to state that political repression was in full force during the convention. While Republicans were safely inside the Xcel Center, patting themselves on the backs for putting their "country first," fifteen-year-olds were being put in handcuffs. Houses were raided and gray water buckets were hauled away as evidence. Hundreds of people were sprayed with chemical weapons and chased into parks and alleyways by masked police on horses. This kind of violence not only affects those who experience it physically, but it affects those who witness it and take it home with them. Children marching with their parents saw these things happen. Two children that I used to babysit for attended Monday's Anti-War March with their parents and later told me that they felt scared of the riot cops they saw. They talked of the anarchists they saw, and the lines of fully-geared riot police, and had come to their own conclusion that the cops were not there to protect anyone and that the anarchists weren't as scary as they had thought they would be.

This experience has made the concepts of police brutality and violence that I hear and read so much about come extremely alive. I have always felt uncomfortable when people referred to police in a dehumanizing way. However, what is now more clear than ever is the severe disparity of power and control. Those who have that power are the riot cops; those without are those who choose to exercise their political right to protest. The anger and violence that result from the clashing of these two groups is alarming and incredibly harmful for all parties involved. It could be easily concluded, however, that the way these different groups of people deal with that anger and violence is different. The protesters end up in jail, beaten and worn down; the riot cops are the ones who deal the beatings, receive overtime pay and go home without having further repercussions for what has happened. Where does that anger, that inexplicable rage go at the end of any of these RNC days?

I realize how fortunate I am to come out of this experience with a lawyer and a family firmly in support of me, and to have been treated better than most were in jail. This does nothing to change the fact that being put into an orange jumpsuit and confined to a solitary cell for three days is a dehumanizing, awful experience. Witnessing ICE agents coming into the jail to look for people to interrogate about their citizenship was unbelievably disturbing -- as was seeing a young woman who was violently dragged by her scalp up the stairs. Her 'crime' had been banging on her cell door, along with many others, in protest of ICE coming in and taking a young woman into an interrogation room. I will never understand why people treat others like that. Nor will I understand why I wasn't allowed to make a phone call before my immediate release -- the two women in the front of the van dropped myself and two other women on a street corner miles outside of downtown, without our cell phones, IDs, or any money. They refused to let me use their phone to tell my mother where they were taking me. They did this to many others as they were released, instead of letting them walk outside the front doors of the jail into the arms of people waiting in solidarity with food and comfort.

This is how I feel today: I'd like an explanation and apology. What I have instead is a November court date. I am being charged with a gross misdemeanor in the 3rd degree for rioting, along with seventeen others. The eighteen of us have been told by those with power that we were simultaneously throwing urine, feces, cement, and fireworks at a line of innocent riot cops. The sheer absurdity of being accused of this leaves me with a bizarre feeling inside. I am still traumatized, angry and confused. It makes it harder that those I was arrested and jailed with are now scattered all across the country. It's going to take time for this to settle and for me to heal -- and it's going to take time for the thousands of people that this has affected and is affecting.

There is some light that comes out of these conventions, these celebrations of wealth and power that happen whether we like it or not every four years. This is what is happening: cities across the country are being radicalized, one by one. This makes me feel a little better about being called a poop-thrower. Mainstream America, "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" people, everyday folks that don't consider themselves radical -- whatever you want to call them -- are seeing and experiencing things that they normally do not have to confront. While many won't know the truth, because of what corporate media reports, many more will because it's happening in their streets, to their children or their children's friends. They can see who and what is being protected, and they know it is not their cities or their neighbors. This is the point -- and it makes me feel better. It has the potential to make us all feel better -- because it's happening right now and will continue to happen as we go on about our lives in Olympia.

Tovah Rudawski is a senior at Evergreen, worked at POWER, Parents Organizing for Welfare and Economic Rights for the past year, enjoys loud music and short bike rides.