My First Protest

Originally published May 3, 2007

Last weekend I did something I always thought I’d never do. I went to New York and attended a protest. Like many people I have always felt that protestors were kind of stupid. When you picture protestors in your mind you get images of those guys who live outside of the white house to protest nuclear weapons. Some of those guys have been out there for months. I certainly admire their conviction, but after a while you’d think they’d realize their protest is not having much effect. But it turns out better executed forms of protest do have an effect.

I went to New York with my amnesty international group to the amnesty international “Get on the Bus” protest rally. We drove into Manhattan, met with the organizers, and than headed to our first protest destination which was JP Morgan headquarters, we arrived there a little early. While we were standing around in our t-shirts that had various pro peace slogans written on them in magic marker, I seemed to be getting a lot of dirty looks from people who seemed to be employees of JP Morgan and the police who were assigned to keep an eye on us protesters. This made me uncomfortable since I had often given the same dirty looks to protesters I had passed by before this. When everyone else had arrived we were herded into our designated protest area which was a large rectangle formed by police barricades. We began chanting and handing out flyers. A man came up to me and said “Why are you protesting JP Morgan?” It was then that I realized I wasn’t entirely sure why we were protesting JP Morgan. Fortunately someone better informed than I jumped in and told him why we were protesting. JP Morgan is responsible for cleaning up a chemical contamination in Bhopal India for some reason, and they weren’t doing it.

We kept chanting and we did get people’s attention. Mostly dirty looks and a crazy person who cursed at us, but some people did take interest. After a while the chanting was giving me a sore throat, so I diverted my attention to looking at one of the hot female police officers, until one of the organizers handed me a megaphone. This was a mistake on her part. The chants were getting monotonous, so I tried starting my own chant with the megaphone. “Whoooo! Yeah! JP Morgan Sucks!” I yelled out. The woman immediately snatched the megaphone back and my chant never even got a chance. I actually was having fun doing this. Protesting actually combined two things I enjoy, yelling things at people, and trying to create obscene chants. Though I felt some of my fellow protestors were a bit upset with me. Apparently when you’re protesting egregious violations of human rights you’re not allowed to have fun.

After we were done with JP Morgan, we walked over to the Guatemalan consulate to protest the fact Rios Montt, the former dictator of Guatemala lives free there. Rios Montt killed 70,000 indigenous people and an international warrant had been issued for his arrest. But so far nothing had been done. After about five minutes of chanting someone came out of the consulate and said they would not rest until Rios Montt was brought to justice. We all cheered but the problem was we were supposed to stay there longer. We ended up chanting even though we had accomplished our goal. I attempted to start a “Rios Montt is a dick” chant, but again it failed to catch on. Our last stop was the Chinese consulate where we went to protest the Chinese selling weapons to Sudan which supported the genocide in Darfur. By now I really had to go to the bathroom. The problem with protesting is that it seems gauche to ask to use the bathroom of the place you’re protesting. After some more chanting the organizers told us to link arms to show our unity in the issue. The chain I was part of ended up forming a circle. One of the organizers got in the middle with a megaphone and asked everyone “Why are we here?”

“Because genocide blows!” I yelled out. The organizer handed the megaphone to a girl so she could answer the question “Why are we here?”. She replied “What that guy said,” she replied pointing to me. “Because genocide blows.” For once I had most of the crowd behind me, and I decide to take advantage of it. “Genocide blows!” I chanted. For roughly four and a half seconds people were chanting my chant. It kicked ass.

We all began to disband and head back to our cars when I heard something fantastic. One of the organizers told us that JP Morgan agreed to clean up Bhopal and TIAA CREF also agreed to clean up Bhopal. On top of that the people at the Guatemalan consulate agreed to bring Rios Montt to justice. 2/3 of our protests worked. We had actually made a difference. Our presence combined with my obscene chanting ended up saving lives. So don’t think protesting is useless. It is more effective than many people think and is an excellent way to yell at people and make them feel guilty. So until next time my loyal readers. Stay happy, and always know that I love you.