An absolutely gorgeous day in San Francisco, and the rally and march were incredible! Before digging into the photos, a couple of things I wanted to talk about.
One of the first speakers at the rally brought up the Obama chant, which came via Cesar Chavez and the International Farm Workers if I remember correctly, “Yes, we can. Si se peude.” I heard that and I almost lost it. The weight of the past year and going from Obama to Trump. How hard Obama had to work to undue the damage from Bush and get our country back on its feet as well as repair its international standing. And now the damage done by Hair Gropenfuhrer in only one year. It struck me as a nearly physical blow how much we had lost in only a year. Only one year. The moment only lasted a few seconds, but DAMN! But maybe that was just my reaction.
I want to commend the rally and march organizers. They did an absolutely magnificent job. The speakers were diverse, and covered a range of social justice issues, including but not limited to: DACA, #MeToo, LGBTQIA rights, homelessness, disability (differently-abled) rights, healthcare. But through all those issues focused on the themes of voting and women running for office. In the range of issues and differing opinions in the left coalition on how to address those issues from a strategy perspective, the focus remained on helping allies get to and win at the ballot box. We can debate nuance and differences after we win. Well done.
I’ve been to other protests and rallies in San Francisco since moving here in 2003. Notably against Bush and the Iraq war and Occupy at the beginning of the Obama era, but also including the Pride parade. A couple of things stand out. First, police presence at Occupy and the Iraq War protests featured heavy shows of force in terms of personnel, as well as including riot gear, though sometimes riot helmets were strapped at the waist rather than worn. There would also be enough police to border surround the rallies as well as create a single-file gauntlet along parade routes. Sometimes that gauntlet was maintained by motorcycle units leap-frogging as the march moved. Today, there were certainly police, but their presence was for the purpose of safety, not confrontation. Standard duty uniforms. Just enough personal on hand to take care of isolated incidents that might occur in any large crowd. Not a visible presence or sense of intimidation that they were on a hair trigger in case a riot broke out.
The only reason I bring up Pride is because it’s a huge event in San Francisco. I’ve gone to the Festival and skipped the Parade. I’ve gone to the Parade to follow along. I’ve had my schedule altered because I’ve had things to do across the city, but oops, couldn’t get past the Festival and Parade route for a few hours. I might be mis-remembering, but I think crowd sizes for the Pride events I’ve been at were reported in the 70,000-80,000 range. I wasn’t at last year’s march, so I can’t make that comparison, but this felt bigger than anything I’ve been to here. I arrived early enough to see signs and crowds coming in. I moved around to try and get a feel for the edges of the crowd, but once it got going, found I couldn’t get farther than a belt in the ranging to either edge of the two sidewalks down the center of the Civic Center Park plaza. I could see that some of the crowd toward Grove St was seated in the grassy area, but I couldn’t make out the edge of the crowd toward McCallister, nor back to Post.
When the March started, I figured my position in the crowd would put me around the middle of the pack. It’s possible I misjudged and was closer to the front than I thought, but when we went down Market St., the crowd kept going and going… It looked like it started at least 2-3 blocks ahead of me, and I couldn’t make out the tail end. We spanned the full width of Market, and spilled over onto the sidewalks. I stopped to use an ATM off 5th St., and then worked my way back to the march, maybe ten minutes perhaps. And then at 2nd & Market I stopped to to watch the crowd pass & see if there were signs I hadn’t seen. It kept going and going and going… It felt like even the Energizer Bunny would have needed a change of batteries. I wondered if perhaps some at the front of the group had had so much fun and felt so energized that they looped around to go through one more time. I’ve seen a huge range of estimates, but instead of citing erroneous figures, I’ll just show you
This video was captured by helicopter around the start of the March. The March finished around 5pm.
Before getting into my photos, here are a couple I liked from the Twitter machine.
Without further ado...
In the harry potter category
from the headlines
Here’s some adorable to cleanse your brain
Wonder Woman
A little sign miscellany