Voices from Ferguson: “I wouldn’t give a fuck about your god damn justice system”; Running on Adrenaline
Li Onesto | August 23, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Every night people are still gathering down on West Florissant to protest the murder of Michael Brown. On Wednesday night, August 20, I talked to some of the people who were marching up and down the street and standing along the sidewalks as the police periodically threatened people with their orders to "move or be arrested." These are two of the people I talked to:
“I wouldn’t give a fuck about your god damn justice system”
Tell me how you feel about the killing of Michael Brown?
Ferguson, August 15. Photo: Li Onesto/revcom.us
That’s the main reason why [I’m out here]—his mother. My daughter is on dialysis, she goes to dialysis three times a week She just had surgery last week. I don’t even want to think about losing her on that emergency room table, I wouldn’t think of it. For someone gun that boy down like that and kill him and murder him. Oh my god. To my baby? To my child? Are you serious? I would be ready to die. I would be ready to die. I wouldn’t give a fuck about your god damn justice system. I would be ready to fucking die. This march right here is the only thing that’s keeping motherfuckers calm, for real, because it’s the only thing we can do to burn off the energy that we have, the anger that we really have. If it was my mother fucking kid, I would be ready to kill everybody.
I have heard a lot of people out here saying, “I am Michael Brown.”
Ferguson, August 15. Photo: Li Onesto/revcom.us
Because we represent any motherfucking body that is out here that can be shot down in broad daylight, or in the night, or behind the trashcan, or behind the alley, or in private, or in secret, however their initiations are going, anybody who is in that position. Because that boy was, two weeks ago, alive and well and now his blood is poured upon the street. My baby is the same age as him. I’m a mother of two children. I don’t want to see my babies grow up into a world where they got to be worried about the police. It has nothing to do with race, it has nothing to do with white or Black. It has something to do with the authority that’s over us. Who is governing this system? Who’s governing this system? Who’s governing it? Who making sure that we safe? You say you’re here to serve and protect, we trust that. We go about our normal day lives—buying tampons every month, food every day, taking a shit every night when we gotta to use the bathroom. We go through normal life. And then we go outside and we say, hey, the police is set up to protect and they killing us at the same time. Who do you go to? Where do you go? Where do you go? Where do you go?
If somebody killed your child like that and murdered your child, how would you feel. I got a baby that’s fighting for her life through dialysis, her kidneys could fail. I could not imagine losing her in that way. I could shed millions of tears right now if my baby would have took the same exit as Mike Brown did. If somebody shot my baby down like that I would be devastated. And I don’t care what race you are. Anybody who given birth to a child that they love, that they done birth, that they done fed and they got big and strong, and encouraged them to go to school, and encouraged them as to get an education; to encourage them to be the best Black person, Asian person, Hispanic person—whatever they can be, you want that for your baby. But somebody is to say, I got authority and I got the right. Well, I got this gun and I am a police and because of this I can take your life and nothing is gonna be done and then get paid a two weeks vacation, that’s crazy...
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Running on Adrenaline
Is this the first night you’ve been out here?
Oh, no. We were actually out here the first Sunday night, the day after the shooting and when the police attacked the candlelight vigil march with their dogs and confronted us with their tear gas masks. They blocked the whole road and the had all the protesters were up there and the police had their tear gas masks threatening us for like a couple of hours and they had the road blocked up here and at the other end, way past the Quick Trip [convenience store]. I think there were like 15 jurisdictions of police were all occupied with the protesters, all the looters came in. They released the dogs on the vigil marchers.
This was a peaceful march?
Yeah, they were marching up off of Canfield and down West Florissant and dogs came out and everyone started rushing back and then the cops started congregating right there.
Why did you feel that you had to be out here?
Well, at first, Sunday it was more it was like a vigil to honor his life. I’ve never seen a vigil march attacked with dogs and tear gas masks before. I’ve been to a lot of protests in my life and I have only seen protesters confronted on public streets with cops in riot gear twice in my life. At the Trayvon Martin protests in St. Louis last summer. But whenever the protesters are white I have never seen militarized police, at least not in Missouri. I’m running on adrenaline this week. I’m usually lucky if I can get out of the house once a week. I’m like on some kind of adrenaline or something.
How have you been able to maneuver in your wheelchair out here in the protests?
Well, until I got a flat tire a few minutes ago I was doing OK. People have been pushing me and stuff. But now I have a flat tire and I gotta find a bike shop in the morning.
People have been helping you out?
Oh, yeah. They’ll come and push me or when I got tear gassed they were pouring water on my face.
People helped you get out of the tear gas?
Other protesters grabbed me and pushed me down the street. People take care of each other. They tear gassed us down there and then they advanced up the street and they got us again down there. They cleared 6 blocks and then they went into the residential neighborhoods and they were throwing flashbangs in residential neighborhoods and rubber bullets.
They started the attack two and a half hours before the start of midnight curfew.
They launched the tear gas at three minutes after nine because I have it on video. They tried to lie, the cops tried to lie about the timeline of events. They tried to say there was a crowd of people attacking the McDonalds and that’s why they did it. They came up with about three different reasons why they attacked us and all of them are bullshit. I have video of the children on the sidewalk in front of the McDonald’s 5 minutes before the tear gas was launched. The “large crowd of people attacking the McDonald’s” was after the tear gas when they broke in to get milk to treat tear gas victims. The tear gas came first.
I’m impressed that you’re out here. It’s inspiring.
One of the other protesters the other night, she comes up to me and she says, “You’re in a wheelchair.” And I’m like, “Yeah, I am.” And she says, “I don’t see those marshmallow Christians out here and you’re out here in a wheelchair! It was just another protester and I had never heard the term ‘Marshmallow Christians’ and I just loved the term. It was very funny.”
How would you say the reception has been to people coming in from outside Ferguson, including white people like yourself?
Unless they’re white people with guns like the ones they arrested the other night...I have never had any...I’m more scared of...those cops are the ones who tear gassed us. The protesters, I can’t go 20 feet without, “do you need water, do you need anything?” They’re very protective of me.
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And still no justice for Michael Brown.
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