Talk Description to Me

Episode 5 - The Portland Protests

August 03, 2020 Christine Malec and JJ Hunt Season 1 Episode 5
Talk Description to Me
Episode 5 - The Portland Protests
Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

When unidentified, armed authorities in full military gear started nabbing citizens off the streets of Portland, protestors of all stripes responded immediately - and in very Portland ways! Christine and JJ discus viral videos and images of the Hockey Stick Brigade, the Wall of Moms, and the Naked Athena, then break down the look and use of projectiles deployed by Federal officers. Plus a quick follow-up on our earlier discussion of sports team mascots and logos. Buckle up for a big episode with some big emotional swings!   

For links to the images, videos and information discussed in this episode, check out the Talk Description to Me blog.

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JJ:

Talk description to me with Christine Malec and JJ Hunt.

Christine:

Hi, I'm Christine Malec.

JJ:

and I'm JJ hunt. This is talk description toto me, where the visuals of current events and the world around us. Get hashed out in description, rich conversation.

Christine:

We're going to start today by following up on something that we covered in a previous episode, which is some of the visual branding in sports. And since we recorded and posted those there's been some significant changes in there. I know in, in Canada, the Edmonton football team renamed itself, and there's been some other teams that have done some rethinking on their branding. JJ, can you remark on?

JJ:

Yeah. Yeah. I was really pleased to see this. I mean, this has been in the works for a long time, but things just reached a head and a, and a few of the major offenders actually got pushed into a corner and and decided to make changes. So yes, Edmonton's football team, they dropped their name and the nice thing about them dropping the name. We don't have to say it anymore. Their name Washington, which was the worst of the worst, their name was atrocious. And so they are now the Washington football team. Edmonton is the Edmonton football team until they can get new names until they choose new names. Cleveland, not yet, not yet, but they are really being pushed into a corner. So they are, they're holding on tight. But I think the Cleveland baseball team it's, it's gotta be coming now, interestingly NHLs Chicago Blackhawks. This was a team that we had, we discussed their logo and described it in detail. And and it's funny because I'd thought I'd mentioned that I thought they were, they were a team that could really make changes and, and because their logo can shift from a representation of an indigenous man to the Blackhawk bird, I thought that would be a really interesting shift. And we talked about some of the the design options that are out there. And then our conversation actually went into a discussion of the name Blackhawks, which wasn't something that we had planned. And so Chris, neither of us had, you know, full research on this or anything we were just talking. And some of that discussion is outside of the purview of this show. Obviously we want to keep this show about description, but after we went off the air, we did some research and, and I was looking into the name black Hawks. And I was under the impression that Blackhawks were a people, and the black Hawk people is- that's erroneous. Black Hawk is a person it's a, it's an individual person, not a people. Black Hawk was a Suak band leader and warrior. And his name, his birth name was Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, please pardon my pronunciation. And sometimes the warriors that were in under his command and fought in the black Hawk war were erroneously referred to as the black Hawks. And and in fact they weren't, they, they were from their own bands or as part of the sock nation as well. And yeah, so the, the team named the Chicago Blackhawks is actually named after him an individual, not a people. Anyway, there's lots of really interesting information about that. We'll make sure to post some links on our blog if anyone's interested in that, but I did just want to jump in and, and yeah, thanks for bringing that up. So we could tie up a few of those loose ends.

Christine:

We're gonna talk about something that's very difficult. It's a difficult topic to discuss and to flesh out and we're going to do our best with it. We want to talk about Portland and the things that have been going on there in terms of the images that are being circulated. So I read things and sometimes images are, you sort of get a sense of what's going on based on what people say, but JJ, can, can we talk about some of the most widely circulated images that are coming out of Portland,

JJ:

As you say, it's tough to, it's tough to talk about this, and it's tough to kind of Wade into these videos and spend a lot of time thinking about them and watching them and breaking them down. But then we got some feedback from from our listeners, Sarah, on Facebook with someone who came out and, and really, and I think people, people want to hear some descriptions of these. And that is one of the reasons we're doing this podcast is so that we can provide some descriptions of some of these videos, just as a little bit of background in Portland, the protest had been going on for more than 60 consecutive nights. They've been protesting every day since the killing of George Floyd. And the protests are demanding action against police brutality. That's that's of course their focus. And then sometime around mid July, federal agents were filmed grabbing people off the street and pulling them into unmarked cars. Now, at the time, people didn't know these were federal agents because the, the, the people who are doing the arresting or kidnapping, depending on your point of view, they're not wearing proper insignia. They're not identifying themselves verbally. And there's one video in particular that came out a viral video that was showing two men covered head to toe in green camouflage. Now this is the new uniform of the day in Portland. So these are, these are agents, federal agents who are dressed in green camouflage, military wear full flak jackets. They've got green camouflage coverings on the lower half of their face, like, like masks, their scarves pulled up right up to their eyes. They wear dark sunglasses and green camouflage helmets with visors. So you cannot see their faces at all. They've got all of their, their vests and their and their belts are laden with pockets and, and weapons and tools. And they often have rings of a zip tie, like loops of zip ties for like impromptu handcuffs hanging off of their belts, ready to arrest someone at any moment. And this one particular video, these two men covered head to toe in green camouflage. They, they start approaching some what you presume are protesters or people who were filming with, with a cell phone camera and the two men they're there. They don't have large weapons out, but they do have holstered sidearms holstered, handguns. And one of the, these two I'm going to start calling them soldiers. I think it just makes more sense. They look like soldiers. They're intentionally trying to look like soldiers. He's got his hand on his holstered weapon and they, they start walking toward this presumed group of protesters and they pick out one individual, the protestor who's relatively slight wearing all black, black sweater. Black pants looks like maybe wearing some kind of a messenger bag or something again, black COVID mask and a black kind of helmet. And and they, they, they approach they back this individual up against a wall. This is a boarded up wall, a wall boarded up with like chipboard, which is kind of like a plywood. They back them up. I don't know if the man or a woman, they back this protest or up against a wall. The protesters got, got their hands up. And these two soldiers take them, take the take the protesters hands, put them behind their back and March them off. Now, meanwhile, the people who are filming are like screaming, like, who are you? What are you doing? Use your words, use your words. And the two soldiers do not acknowledge. They do not state who they are, the only insignia they have. Right. there's small patches on there, right in the center of their Bulletproof vests in the, in like like a mustard yellow color that just say police, that's it. That's the only way to identify them.

Christine:

Now, in the interest of trying to document and contextualized, when you say camouflage, I think hunting, or I think soldiers in a totally context. So when you describe that, when you see that, what does it say to the average watching sighted person? Does it say U S army? Does it say I'm hunting for moose? Like I don't really get what, what reaction that camouflage is meant to evoke in someone looking at it.

JJ:

I'm so, so glad you brought that up because this kind of camouflage is I think it would be classified as a Woodland camouflage. So it is green on green with some Brown, right? And it's exactly for that kind of situation. If you want to hide in a wooded environment, this is the kind of camouflage you need. There, there are different kinds of camouflage. There are urban camouflages. So there's an urban camouflage. That's like a grays and blacks and kind of more digitized. So instead of being blobby shapes that are overlapping, which is a more natural environment blending like that blends better in the natural environment. If you're trying to blend into a city, they're more kind of jagged and digital and pixelated. And if you're trying to hide it during the day, you're wearing a light grays and some dark grays. If you're trying to hide more at night, you're wearing a dark grays and blacks in this pattern, these individuals, these soldiers who by the way, are federal or they're actually federal agents from the border patrol. Who've been called in by the federal government. They're dressed in green camouflage. And that tells me exactly what you were just hinting at there. Chris is that w what this uniform is for is either a, they didn't have any others, cause they're not supposed to be doing this work. And they don't, they're not prepared. They're not equipped for it. And or B, they want to be seen as combat soldiers. If, to my mind you wear this, you dress like this because you want the people who are seeing you to know that you are a hardcore soldier, that's who you're dealing with. And so for me, it's less about blending in and more about standing out and more about declaring who you are. That's what this camouflage, that's what it tells me anyway. So the other thing, these videos are really they're handheld, they're shaky. There's often a lot of action and activity, so it can be difficult to get those precise details. Portland's unofficial motto is keep Portland weird and that's coming out in the protests. So these are some quirky individuals, and there are some protesters who have taken on different roles. Like some are, some are frontline agitators, right? These are really aggressive people who are getting in the faces of of the soldiers, of the, of the, the official forces. And then you've got different groups who are like there's the hockey stick brigade. Have you heard about the hockey stick Brigade? Some of these protesters have they come with hockey sticks so that if a, if a tear gas canister gets thrown or shot at them, they can, you know, whip it back using a hockey stick. They don't want to pick it up, shoot it back. It's crazy. And these, the hockey brigade, they're like are some of the more wacky and out there. And like, there's a theatrical element to it. I saw a photo of, one of the hockey stick brigade members, and she's got like this roller Derby aesthetic going on. So she's wearing like short jeans shorts, knee pads. And she's got on this. She's got a, like a towel cape, it looks like a white cape. Like the, when you were a kid and you went in your mom's closet and pulled out a cape you've tied around your neck. And, and she's got a white helmet with white ski goggles, but the helmet's like again, I guessing maybe it looks like a roller Derby or a bicycle helmet, but it's white. It's got little white cat ears, two dots for eyes and a little red boat. It's a hello, kitty helmet. Oh, Oh, this is her outfit for like defending her town.

Christine:

The first things you described, frankly, scared the hell out of me. So I sort of, I'm glad to know that there's a lighter side and that there are people who are doing this joyfully, not in terror. Like,

JJ:

Yeah, I it's, it's really all over. It's all over the map. And some of the, so just to go back to the, the original video that we were talking about when, when this person, this protestor in black gets hauled away by the two soldiers there, the protestor is put into an unmarked minivan and driven away. And this is like a civilian family minivan. So, and no one, they have not identified themselves in any way. No one who was with this kidnapped protester knows who's got them where they're going. They just disappear. They don't even close the minivan door. They just zip off. They drive off down the road. And this is the kind of, this is the kind of terror that people were really freaking out about, right? Like when the federal government starts sending people into your city and arresting them, or kidnapping them without any indication of where they're going, people get really angry. So then that protest is really launch right. Then, then it went to a whole new level and new groups of people stepped forward to say, we need to protect the people who are who are the, the biggest aggressors in our, in our protests. We need to protect the aggressors so that they can do their thing. So then you had the, the wall of moms, the wall of dads, the wall of vets, and these were groups of people who got together on Facebook or Twitter, whatever, and, and decided they were going to make a, they were going to separate the protesters from the police. They were going to stand between them and say, if you want to get at these agitators, you got to come through the moms first. And so there's some incredible images of these, these moms. So a lot of the moms got together wearing a yellow shirts. Any yellow shirt would do. They just want it to stand out, right? Again, there's a bit of theatrical involved here, right? So women wearing yellow tee-shirts or yellow sweaters or yellow give cardigans, vests, anything. They had some had logos printed on them. I saw a couple of women wearing black lives matter t-shirt and in yellow and three women linking arms wearing shirts that said, summoned mama, you know, these are like, these are just moms. One, mom had a sign that said, go home goons. Your moms are worried. They packed this one street. There's one particular day that they were being photographed. They packed a street to separate the agitators from the from the soldiers. And they all face forward. They're all facing in one direction. They're linking arms. They're like three, four, five. I can't tell how many people deep. And some of them, some of these moms are raising a fist in the air and the black power salute, linking arms facing forward and defying the these soldiers like you are not getting through. And then, then the, then the wall of dads and the dads showed up and they had, they wore orange, I believe like home Depot, orange. And they had leaf blowers, leaf blowers are a big deal in these protests because the, the, the cops and the soldiers are shooting paint like pepper spray, canisters, and tear gas, canisters. And so you use they they've been using leaf blowers to blow the smoke back at the it's incredible. And then the wall of vets. So these veterans, there's one video that was going around, where someone walked straight down a line of these veterans. These are men and women of all shapes and sizes, I think maybe 20 or so. And they are standing in what would be called the at ease stance in the military. So standing tall, straight with your hands class, behind your back legs, slightly spread, kind of chest out. That's the at ease stance and they're silent and they are stoic behind them. Protesters are chanting. They're doing whatever they need to do, but these, this wall of vets will not move. And they're just staring straight ahead. One of them is holding an American flag that's upside down which is a signal of dire distress, or a political protest. It's intense.

Christine:

It's hard to talk about this. Can, can you see facial expressions of the people of the wall of vets or the wall of moms or the wall of dads?

JJ:

Yeah. In some cases you can, I mean, almost everyone in these protests is wearing a mask, a COVID mask of some kind, right. And I say, COVID mass because I'm trying to differentiate between a mask that covers your whole face. And then there's a, the, it's not always a surgical mask. Sometimes it's a bandana, or sometimes it's a scar for sometimes it's like, there are companies that are making safety masks in all kinds of different fabrics and patterns and styles. So I'm just referring to them as COVID masks to, to indicate that that's what they're used for. So you can't always see the bottom half of their faces a lot are also wearing goggles or some kind of eye protection so that they are you know, they're protected against pepper spray balls. And see the thing is, Oh, the cops are using what they refer to now as less lethal weapons used to be nonlethal, but it's not, they can't say it anymore because they've, there's, there've been enough. There's been enough research into this. They're not non-lethal, they're just less lethal. And when they're firing these less lethal weapons into these crowds, especially these, the agents that are on site on site right now, there's no indication that they've been trained in crowd control. So they're, they're behaving frankly, fairly erratically. And they're firing into these crowds of people at too close a range. They're using weapons that are only supposed to be used on the torso and they're hitting people in the head. And so, and one of the, the most serious common, serious injuries in these protests is is blindness because these bullets, these rubber bullets, or these projectiles, or these pepper spray balls, they hit the person's face and, and they scar them for life. And they people there've been several people in these protests who have lost sight in one eye or both, or had major concussions or serious head injuries. What

Christine:

A pepper spray ball look like. That's, that's a new one to me.

JJ:

So I found a really interesting article on these less lethal weapons that can put a link to it in our in our blog. So they're, they're using different kinds of what they call less lethal weapons. Colloquially. These have been known as a rubber bullets, but they now they've grown. So there are rubber ish style bullets. There are bean bags filled with lead shot, and there are these pepper spray balls. And the pepper spray balls are really paint balls, they're little plastic balls, but instead of being filled with paint, or just with paint, they're also filled with pepper spray so that when they explode, when they hit the ground or hit a person and they break open, they either emit like a gas. It's not actually a gas, but it like, it spreads like a gas and it, and it makes your eyes water. And, and there's a, there is a muscle contraction agent in there. So people seize up and feels terrible, and it also might have paint in the ball as well, so that it marks you as being someone who was on the front lines. So if you see someone later after things have settled down and they've got paint splotches on them, you know, they're someone that was an agitator, someone who was in the front lines of these of these protests and these beanbags filled with led shot. I hadn't seen these before. They look like, like little packets of muslin, right? There's a fabric, a little bean bags, and they're filled with the kind of lead shot you would put in a shotgun. And and they're shot again. They're supposed to be shot at a, at a reasonable distance, not aimed at the head. But when they hit, they, they really look like they hurt. There are images of people with these beanbags lodged in their skin, lodged in their skulls, the rubber bullets, the name rubber bullets makes it sound really rather innocent. And they're clearly not. These are, these are nasty weapons. All of these videos are, they're almost all filled with smoke because these smoke bombs, these canisters are opening in, they're spreading their smoke all over. So these long things, long tendrils of thick white smoke that then spread out and cause the law. And then there's like a Misty cloudiness to a lot of these videos. And people are constantly running, especially if anything of note is happening, people are running back and forth. There are flash bangs going off. This is another weapon that the soldiers are using. So these are, you know, canisters look like grenades and they, when they go off, it's a huge bang. And there's a flash of light. Maybe there are like sparks, like a, like a firecracker. And it just creates this chaotic scene. It really looks like, and I've described a lot of war movies. I've described a lot like documentaries and things. This really does look like urban war footage. You know, the only difference is that the, the weapons that the police are carrying, that these soldiers have on them. Sometimes they're they have an orange, a bright orange stock, or a bright orange grip to indicate that this weapon has less lethal weapon ammunition in it. But otherwise they look everything about the scene. Looks like it looks like a battle scene. Can you comment

Christine:

On the demographics of the protestors?

JJ:

Yeah. So really interesting after watching several of these videos, I, I noticed that from Portland, these videos from Portland, frankly, this is a very white crowd. Now, this is interesting, you know, lots of people wearing black lives matter and, and, you know the black power salute, but it's a very white crowd. And I later found out it's because Portland is a very white city, 70% white and only 5% black. So it's a lot of light skinned people in the crowd. Then the demographics shifts quite a bit, right after you get past that, then you've got different ages of people. More of the young people at night when things get really dark and dicey. But then when the groups of moms, the wall of moms, these are, they're all kinds of moms from all different backgrounds. Have you heard of the naked Athena?

Christine:

I did hear about this in passing, please. Tell about her.

JJ:

Wow. So naked Athena is this woman who was unknown at the time. She still comes she's since come forward and given a few interviews, but she walks into this downtown intersection. And one of the things about trying to describe these videos is they're filmed from all over the place. And you can, it's hard to tell which videos match up with which videos, because there's so much chaos. Well, these videos, you can tell that they are all naked Athena because this woman walks into a downtown intersection where the police are on one side and a protest is, or on the other. She walks right into the middle of the intersection, completely naked, mrs. A, a lean attractive young woman. And the only thing she's wearing is a knit hat. So what we Canadians would call it two and a COVID mask. And she walks into the intersection and stands facing the Shoal, the soldiers she's got her legs shoulder with the part and her hands at her side. And she just stares at them completely naked. And then some of the soldiers raise their weapons. And one of the protesters runs in, in what looks like it's like a green protective vest and he's got a makeshift shield and any cover, sir, with, with his shield. He stands right in front of her uncover, sir, and the soldiers fire at the ground right near their feet, pepper spray balls. I'm guessing given the sound and the little tendrils of smoke coming out of them, but the woman, the naked Athena, as she's been dubbed, she stands her ground and she throws her arms straight up in the air. And the guy's still shielding of the protest. You're still shielding her at some point, the firing at her feet, she kind of backs up and, and their angles from all over. I mean, you get a naked woman in the middle of a protest. People are going to film. So there, it's kinda hard to put all these videos together and get an exact chronology. But at some point she lies down on the ground. And again, she's, there's this line of soldiers the way across the street, I'm guessing 20, maybe 30 soldiers all the way across blocking a whole intersection. And she lies downstairs at the sky and she arches her back, throws a leg in the air. She, she gets up at some point, she does the the tree pose. She starts doing like yoga and pseudo ballet moves. Gentlemen, the guy who was shielding her he goes away in a, in a, in another protester. A woman comes up and stands beside her, like arms crossed kind of like standing guard and this naked Athena's posing, but like the big moment at some point, the soldiers part and they drive a vehicle forward. They don't go well like well into the intersection, but they drive this vehicle forward with its headlights shining straight at this woman. And she doesn't flinch. She gets down on the ground. She sits on the ground, her bare bottom on the bare concrete. She spreads her legs with her knees up and kinds of leans forward just a little bit with her, with her elbows on her knees. So she is completely open facing down the lights of this police vehicle

Christine:

Was the vehicle that drove up. Was it a, a security vehicle or a protestors vehicle? Or we don't know.

JJ:

Oh, it was definitely from the the police side. Like it came through the, the line of police. They, the cops, the soldiers, they stepped aside to allow the vehicle in, but you can't see what it is because the headlights are shining. So they're coming straight at the camera.

Christine:

How do the soldiers respond? How does that moment end?

JJ:

It's hard to know. Well, at some point she gets up and she, and she turns to the protesters and she kind of walks away again, the exact chronology is difficult because these are, you know, someone posts a five minute video, someone posts a 30 second video there, and then you kind of piece them all together. But at some point she gets up and she walks into the crowd of protesters and looks at a few cameras and you can hear people say like, wow, that was really brave, or that was intense. And she's kind of, she puts a hand on her chest at some point, like as if she's got a pounding chest and she's trying to calm herself, you know, that kind of gesture. And and the individual responses from the, from the soldiers is a little hard to tell because they're, they tend to be in the, in the distance. They're further away from the from the protesters cameras and their faces are totally covered by you know, with the masks and shields and whatnot. So it's a little difficult to tell their personal reactions, but they shot at the ground when she got too close and they, they backed her up. They hit her foot. Apparently they at one point she points to her foot before getting into the tree pose. So

Christine:

This is maybe showing my own biases, but that sounds so sometimes in hindsight, one can say this isn't the iconic image of a particular event that, that sounds to me like an extremely iconic image for about an essay worth of reasons. Do you think that's true?

JJ:

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And like I said, there's so many shots from different angles and people shooting videos, but the specifically, the one shot where she is sitting on the ground with her legs open facing the soldiers and the vehicle with the light shining on her. It's the perspective of the person taking the picture. He's he or she is directly behind the naked Athena shooting kind of over her body. So you can see her body, you can see her legs spread directly in front of this wall of cops and the lights. It's all about these lights from the vehicle, the headlights shining straight out her. And that's why I said, there's something about it. That's I mean, it's so perfectly composed. It's symmetrical. It's, it's a gorgeous image. She's a beautiful woman. The lights shining directly at us. Yeah, I would definitely agree. It is certainly one of the most iconic images from the Portland protests so far.

Christine:

These are such hard conversations to have, and as we work our way through it, it's I feel like I want to say that the purpose of these conversations is to document this what's going on and that as hard as it is for, for me to hear and for you to say, and for listeners to listen documenting things is, is I guess in the end, what, what our podcast is about, Have feedback or suggestions of what you'd like to hear about. Here's how to get in touch with us. Our email address is talk description to me@gmail.com. Our Facebook page is called talk description to me. And our website is talk description to me.com. You can follow us on Twitter at talk description.

The Portland Protests
The Hockey Stick Brigade
The Wall of Moms and Vets
Less Lethal Weapons
Naked Athena