{"id":771,"date":"2020-06-02T21:45:07","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T04:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/?page_id=771"},"modified":"2020-08-17T22:32:37","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T05:32:37","slug":"midnight-march","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/?page_id=771","title":{"rendered":"Midnight March"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last Saturday I mentioned the idea of going downtown for the first big march in honor of George Floyd, but Alex reminded me that we have a big investment in self-isolation as protection against the corona virus.\u00a0 I stayed home and tried to write instead.<\/p>\n<p>A lot happened in my absence!\u00a0 There was a wonderful scene of a Seattle police car aflame just below a NORDSTROM sign, for instance. Violence and property damage are not to be condoned; but, on the other hand, I suspect that social change will happen a lot more quickly if the Chamber of Commerce comes to believe that it is important.<\/p>\n<p>Last night, Monday June 1st, a photo op occured on our own block, as a crowd of demonstrators marched across 3rd Avenue on Clay Street.\u00a0 This happened just before midnight, well after the 5 p.m. curfew.<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 625px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><!--[if lt IE 9]><script>document.createElement('video');<\/script><![endif]-->\n<video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-771-1\" width=\"625\" height=\"351\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Vine2.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Vine2.mp4\">https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Vine2.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p>Notice how, with typical Seattle courtesy, the first marchers pause to let a car pass.\u00a0 A second car, arriving later, parks instead of pressuring the demonstrators, and seems to join in the mood.\u00a0 Note also how well social distancing is observed!<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday another march, the Arts March, came by our block on the other side, up 4th Avenue from Benayora Hall to the Seattle Opera &#8212; I probably could have glimpsed it from our roof. Later in the day, a crowd got Mayor Jenny Durkan to emerge from the City&#8217;s Emergency Operations Center. She promised change that would come from community involvement. &#8220;We want you to march,&#8221; she said, and that peaceful protesters would not be arrested for curfew violations. She didn&#8217;t go so far as to rule out tear gas in answer to violence. Still, this was a welcome contrast to the desire for &#8220;domination&#8221; expressed elsewhere.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last Saturday I mentioned the idea of going downtown for the first big march in honor of George Floyd, but Alex reminded me that we have a big investment in self-isolation as protection against the corona virus.\u00a0 I stayed home and tried to write instead. A lot happened in my absence!\u00a0 There was a wonderful [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":247,"menu_order":13,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-771","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":791,"href":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/771\/revisions\/791"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/247"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwenda.com\/PointedText\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}