I ran onto the freeway approximately a month and a half ago.
There were hundreds of us in the protest for Black Lives Matter. I was in the back of the protest at the time. A man in a truck revved his engine aggressively as a Black woman next to me walked past. She stopped and looked at him.
He revved his engine again.
Hundreds of people had just walked by his truck, most of them white (this is San Luis Obispo). Yet this driver decided to threaten this Black woman with a much thinner crowd. Fucking evil.
Roughly ten people, including myself, quickly surrounded this woman and stood in front of the truck. After 30 seconds he stopped revving and we walked away. He barely waited for us to pass before jetting forward. He nearly hit us. I walked up to the police officer standing 10 feet from the incident and said, “Did you see that? Did you get his license plate??”
The police officer responded, “Let him go-- we are trying to keep you safe on the freeway.”
Are you fucking serious? Threatening mass murder is fine?? A driver threatened to run protesters over WITH THEIR CAR.
Let’s take a quick quiz break shall we? You have 60 seconds. Please bubble in your answer below.
Your neighbor is in front of your car. Can you run them over?
A. No, That’s murder
B. No, I love my neighbors! Good people live here.
Protesters are in front of your car. Can you run them over?
A. No, That’s murder
B. Are the protesters Black or is this a march with mostly White people? Black people scare me.
If protesters are in front of your car ANNND your wife just made bagel bites at home. Can you hit just one or two protesters with your car?
A. No, That’s murder
B. Bagel bites?? We all know if bagel bites sit for more than 15 minutes, they get cold and you have to throw them out. So I guess maybe? Are you judging me? For having an opinion?? This is a free country, I can say what I want!
Pencils down! Hand your quizzes in, hand them in. No discussing answers.
Ok, how’d we do? Did you struggle with anything?
Just like in all 50 states, members of the San Luis Obispo community have been protesting weekly since the murder of George Floyd. My friend, Tianna Arata, is a 20 year old resident of San Luis Obispo, CA. She faces multiple felony and misdemeanor criminal charges for leading peaceful protests in San Luis Obispo. Tianna Arrata has been invoked to lead these protests because of her undeniable charisma, intelligence, and passion.
Tianna reiterates peace at EVERY SINGLE PROTEST. (Sidenote, peace is NOT the only path toward a better world. Just ask the American military. However, Tianna has chosen peace as her preferred method of enacting change.)
Anti-protest agitator spewing hateful speech at the protestors? No problem, Tianna leads everybody into song. Protestors in the back can not hear? Tianna will run from the front to the back to the front in her heels or bedazzled Jordans, shouting “The People, United, Will Never be Divided!” If you talk with her these days, you will hear that her voice is perennially hoarse from speaking, leading and singing into her bullhorn.
She is one of the most magnetic leaders I have ever witnessed. The SLO PD know this and are scared.
Here is a summary of events resulting in Tianna’s arrest on July 21st in San Luis Obispo.
Protesters peacefully walked onto the freeway in the late afternoon
A driver got pissed because protesters halted traffic
He accelerated his car (aka a ~3,000 lbs DEADLY WEAPON), into a protester
The protester was thrown forward, denting the hood of the car with his fucking head
A fellow protester, (likely angry and scared shitless) smashed his skateboard into the back windshield
Glass allegedly hit the driver's 4 year old child, who was reported uninjured
Protests continued peacefully for the rest of the day
At ~8 or 9PM, six police officers grabbed Tianna as she was putting protest equipment in her car and arrested her
They charged Tianna for inciting a riot, resisting arrest, illegal assembly, conspiracy and false imprisonment
The SLO DA office, led by District Attorney, Dan Dow is currently reviewing whether to prosecute the charges recommended by police
“The right to join with fellow citizens in protest or peaceful assembly is critical to a functioning democracy and at the core of the First Amendment.” - The ACLU
Pretty simple right?
THANK GOD brave humans protest. Think of famous protests. The Boston Tea Party, 1773. The Women's Suffrage Parade, 1913. The Stonewall Riots, 1969. The thousands of undocumented slave protests. The Civil Rights movement!
In all of these protests, people were hurt or killed.
Oh wait, EXCEPT the rich white men from the Boston Tea Party upset about taxes. Nobody from the Boston Tea Party was killed, injured, or arrested. AND, they disguised themselves as Native Americans and held their ‘protest’ in the dead of night. Oh, The Bravery!
Now, there are many people who disagree with the protesters. Most alarmingly, San Luis Obispo District Attorney Dan Dow. He is publicly against the Black Lives Matter movement via his Twitter and Facebook posts.
I am bcc’ing this to Dan Dow. Mr. Dow, please read this excerpt from MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail.
Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade.
But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.”
I was not sure whether to write about this topic.
But, I wrote about Tianna because nothing else was on my mind. Last week, in the same 30 minutes Nicole and I ”won” our Carlsbad apartment, we found out police increased the number of felony charges against Tianna. I felt powerless and angry.
I started writing last Friday and continued everyday. As somebody who wants to write humorous articles, why am I writing about this? There is nothing funny about Tianna's situation. It is horrifying.
What maybe came across as ‘funny’ is the disbelief I felt. Drivers threatening pedestrians was a non-issue for police? History textbooks revere the rich white men of the Boston Tea Party yet gloss over the violence experienced by protesters in other major movements. I am naive, I know. But still. What the fuck.
I will never forget hearing Tianna yelling into her megaphone during a protest, “I am scared! White bodies, please protect me! I am the one police are building a case against. Not you!”