It was right outside my window in San Francisco. I was two floors up, with a bird’s eye view of everything: the ambulance, the car, the girl lying by her fallen Vespa - all frozen in place just after the moment where everything went wrong. What got me more than anything was her skirt - it was a bit above knee-length, black leather, and a little showy. She was young, in her twenties I guessed, all dressed up and riding her kicky little Vespa for another saturday night on the town with her friends, maybe her lover. That was all gone now. Now she was going to the hospital… hopefully she’d get to leave it too. I turned away after a couple of seconds - I didn’t want to look for any more details or try to determine her status or chances.
That was at least 30 years ago, but I can still picture it vividly: the swirling lights and clutches of guilty onlookers, the motion of the paramedics around the frozen victim. But mostly I remember her skirt and the way it crystallized her humanity — the way it instantly brought home how fine the line is that separates every moment of our lives from tragedy.
I mention this because a guy just messaged me on twitter. Wants to do a thing with mannequins of children on the steps of the Capitol, preferably when there’s a gun vote so the senators and representatives will have to literally step over bodies. The mannequins would have child victims names on their shirts. He was going to try to coordinate with BLM - there could be a mannequin in a hoodie with Trayvon Martin’s name on it.
He was typing quickly, skipping over words, trying to get the idea all out at once. He said there’d be backpacks and puddles of blood, schoolbooks and brownbag lunches strewn about. And that’s the part that got me: Backpacks. School books. Brown bag lunches. The things they carried with them.
I wrote back saying it’d be easier to use real kids - don’t bother with the mannequins, just have a children’s die-in on the capitol steps. Maybe he’ll pull it off - maybe there’ll be a big thing… But I kept thinking about those backpacks and strewn books and thought “Why do it at the capitol? Why not just do it in the schools?” So I called my daughter - she’s in an activist group at her high school (no big surprise there…) and suggested it. A dozen kids or so do a flashmob thing during lunchtime - a tableau of victims during a shooting - just freezing in place and holding a pose for a minute or so. A couple of kids on the ground, some crouched or trying to hide, some with their arms straight out in front of them in that futile way people try to protect themselves from bullets… other kids trying to make themselves even smaller than they already are… Maybe a chair or two knocked over, and the backpacks and books and lunches strewn around.
She said it was a good idea. She liked it. I said all they’d need was one picture of it to send to the press with a contact number - couldn’t be simpler. They could practically do it tomorrow.
I suggested it to the guy. He liked it. Said we should organize something where a whole bunch of kids do it at a whole bunch of schools on the same day. I wrote back and said “No. Don’t organize. Don’t do it all on the same day. Just start doing it.” I said it was nothing personal, it was just an ideological thing with me. Acting in concert is great and all, but we’ve become WAY too obsessed with it and it’s holding us back.
I think probably more than anything else we need to start organizing less and doing more. Don’t do it “all on the same day...” Don’t “get everybody to do it.” Just do it. Do it and make sure people see you.
So I’m writing this just to put the idea out there, see what you think. Feel free to make suggestions in the comments. The obvious rule would be no fake shooter, no fake gun: victims only. And no acting anything out - no dialogue or screaming or anything else that could be even remotely misconstrued as an actual event. Just people setting up and posing for a picture and holding the pose for a minute or so. Take a picture, send it to the press.
The extent to which it’s done tastefully and effectively depends on the kids I guess. I’ll trust them to do the job right and not go over the top in their poses or expressions. My suggestion for the actors would be “Less is more…” and not to overthink or over-organize it but just to do it. I think the most powerful images would be the ones where the actors are actually secondary to the props, and that more than anything what people need to see are the backpacks and the knocked-over chairs. They need to see the books on the ground and the lunches their parents packed for them just hours before when everything was fine.