The Flood: Reflections on #J20 at University of Washington

Anticipation: Noun | /anˌtisəˈpāSH(ə)n/ | A prior action that takes into account or forestalls a later action.

The morning of Friday, January 20th 2017 was a busy one for many of us. As a broad coalition of people in DC were already locking down the inauguration parade checkpoints, as the anti-capitalist march with a large black bloc rampaged through the streets below the seat of power of the global hegemon, and yet another threat to freedom and decency was sworn into office, those of us along the Salish Sea on occupied Duwamish land awoke to a misty, grey landscape. All things considered in hindsight, this was a fitting start to the day.

A vomitous mixture of anxiety and anticipation welled up from the bottom of my stomach as I rode the bus toward the University of Washington, rushing to get there in time for the student walkout. A coalition of student organizers had been working hard for the past months leading up to #J20 to develop a plan of action for campus and given the fact that Milo was set to speak there later in the evening, it made the most sense to me to dedicate my energies throughout the day to this specific part of the city. I knew that the day ahead of me would feature a steady escalation of intensity of action so I took it upon myself to close my eyes as the bus rocked me back and forth and appreciate this moment of calm.

Agitation: Noun | /ˌajəˈtāSH(ə)n/ | Persistent urging of a political or social cause or theory before the public.

I arrived to Red Square just as the students were walking out for their #CaptureTheObelisk action had begun to congregate. I greeted the Food Not Bombs crew who were already there and we exchanged a sleepy nod, each of us knowing that the other had been up since well before sunrise to prepare supplies for the day whether those supplies were banners, picket signs, or a mass of donated food from various restaurants that would grant us the fuel we needed to carry on for the day. Just some 50 feet away from the growing mass of people UW police were already hard at work setting up a mass of metal barricades in front of Kane Hall where Milo was set to take the stage later that evening while a person from the UW grounds crew nosily blasted away some wheatpasted posters around the hall with a pressure washer. The fact that the administration took such quick, decisive action to prevent Milo or his supporters from even having to look at a poster calling out their hateful bullshit was not lost upon me even in my own groggy state.

After listening to a few speakers on the square, we moved en masse into Odegaard Library. Students who were using the library in a more typical manner looked on with a healthy mix of bewilderment, disbelief, and anger written upon their faces as the group of 1-200 students from the square circled up on the first floor and used the people’s mic to declare that the library was now under occupation. Some folks ran up the stairs to the second and third floor and began draping a variety of banners for all below to see over the railing. One banner read in bold red and black stenciled print “NO MORE PRESIDENTS” while several others were unfurled which read “UW RESIST” which is the name of the organizing coalition which planned the action.

Following our dramatic entrance in to the library, a schedule of workshops and teach-ins was announced to the growing crowd. They covered a wide range of topics from making UW a sanctuary campus to a panel discussion on building resistance to austerity and throughout the day, each presentation had anywhere from 20-40 people in attendance and engaged. In between each round of workshops, different events were held in the center of the library including some spoken word, a performance by an antifascist marching band (much to the chagrin of those who were stubbornly still trying to study in the building), and lunch service from the comrades at Food Not Bombs. In addition to this, the Seattle IWW branch maintained a presence on campus throughout the day so that they could table and agitate students to stick around campus after the Odegaard Library occupation was set to end at 3PM so that they could resist Milo’s talk later in the evening.

One observation that I want to continue to highlight from this part of the day is the fact that FNB served a full 3 meals and kept their table up almost the entire day. This provided a critical piece of infrastructure which allowed those most dedicated to building a resistance to Milo a point to gather around during the lull between the end of the Odegaard occupation and the next wave of action. If it weren’t for this, it would have been far more difficult to maintain a least a nominal antifascist presence on Red Square which likely would have destroyed the already nominal chances of success that the antifascists faced later in the evening. I think it is important for organizers to take this fact into consideration in future planning. While sticking around during this lull meant having to endure a barrage of ridiculous conversations with “curious” young Milo supporters, it still allowed us to maintain a presence and put in the work to keep the general student body agitated against Milo.

As the final class of the day in the room Milo was set to speak in was let out, multiple students could be overheard commenting on something that happened inside the room. Curious about this, I meandered over towards the entrance to the room and was immediately overwhelmed with a wretched stench. What caused this smell can only be speculated, but the end result was all the same; anyone attending a presentation in that room was going to have to endure a very uncomfortable olfactory landscape completely independent of the acute level of bullshit coming from Milo himself. I chuckled to myself at the apt nature of that situation as I went back outside to begin preparing for whatever the evening was to bring.

Actuation: Verb | /ˈak(t)SHəˌwātSH(ə)n/ | To cause to take action: activate.

The day quickly faded into the charcoal tones of a Pacific Northwest winter dusk which prompted the comrades from FNB to begin packing up their gear. At this point folks began bloc’ing up because there was a rapidly expanding line of Milo supporters, many of whom were sporting red MAGA hats, forming in front of the metal barricades. About 15 or so of us anxiously hung around where there FNB table once stood, keeping close together to offer a sense of defense and solidarity against the now 200-strong line for Milo’s talk which still was not set to start for another 2 hours. A week prior, several calls to action had gone out which asked people who wanted to resist Milo to show up at Red Square from 6-6:30PM (doors were set to open at 7). A sense of panic began tugging at the back of my mind as the line continued to swell while the antifascist crowd had only grown to a meager 35 people or so. “There’s no way in hell that we are going to be able to do anything here” I thought to myself as I tried to put on a brave face while admiring the antifascist action flag a comrade was waving.

By the time 6PM rolled around, the police began intermittently driving their bikes into our small crowd while the Milo line, now 500-strong, looked on with amusement. This escalation from the police combined with the increasingly hostile crowd forced the 35 of us who were there into taking action earlier than intended. At the sound of a whistle, our small crowd began the “A-Anti-Anti-Faschiste!” chant and we quickly formed into a coherent bloc as we started to make our way across the crowd who was at that point largely occupied with jeering at what I believe were students doing some sort of interpretive dance in the middle of the line.

It took a good deal of coordination and courage to move our small group through the still-growing crowd and we paused upon reaching the center of Red Square to take stock of the situation. Some whispers were shared between folks in bloc and then we were off once more, fighting our way toward the right side of the barriers set up at the front of the lines where we noticed they had begun allowing people into the venue. As soon as we arrived to that side, we inserted ourselves as closely to barriers as possible which allowed us to gauge the police response. They immediately ceased to permit entry on that side as they attempted to figure out how to respond to us. We remained here for a few minutes to further assess the situation as more friendly reinforcements began to slowly trickle in.

Now some 100-strong, we noticed that the police had now begun admitting ticket holders on the other side of the barriers. Our group was mostly stuck on the right side, which meant we would once more have to push through what were now two side-by-side lines of ticket holders and our initial incursion into the crowd meant that we now had their full, hostile attention. Once more a whistle sounded and one of the folks holding an antifa flag began leading the way through the crowd. The Milo fans offered a much higher level of resistance at this point, grabbing, elbowing, and pushing us as we slowly but surely made our way toward the right side of the barriers. At one point, I turned back to see how many of our group were helping us push through and at first I was dismayed to see only about 20 of us making the effort. Luckily for me, I had turned just as an angry older man directed a stream of pepper spray toward me so it hit the back of my head.

Our small group of 20 or so took about 15 minutes to get through the crowd and over to the right side of the barriers but once we did, we were easily able to insert ourselves between the crowd and the barriers which now had fully-equipped riot police armed with batons on the other side. What had initially presented itself as a tactical disadvantage in the splitting of our groups became a point of strength for us here as we now had both the left and right sides of the barriers blockaded. This allowed us to slowly work our way toward the middle until we had formed a solid line across the entire front of the barriers which created a situation where if the police tried to disperse us, they would have to subject the ticket holders to the same crowd control methods and risk pushing everyone down a small flight of stairs that we held the top of. We locked arms with each other and dug ourselves in for what would be a several hour-long standoff.

Aggradation: noun | /ˌaɡrəˈdāSHən/ | The deposition of material by a river, stream, or current.

What began as just a slow trickle of resistance on Red Square had grown at first into a stream and then a deluge and as you may know, any time there is a flood, there is a mass of soil and debris left behind by the raging waters; this time was no different. As the increasingly frustrated Milo fans pushed us against the barricades and police line, the chief of UWPD finally stepped forward and announced through the world’s smallest megaphone that no further people were going to be allowed into the venue. A rush of exhilaration exploded through us along the front line as we cheered in victory, having achieved what just hours ago had seemed all but impossible. We had succeeded in preventing roughly 1/7^th of them from getting in. Most of the Milo fans however either did not hear the chief or chose to stick around, waiting to see if the police would change their mind so we continued to hold our position.

The celebratory atmosphere continued along the front lines, with Milo supporters receiving a chorus of “happy trails!” as they began slinking away dejectedly one by one. It was around this point where scuffles began to intermittently break out below us in the crowd between visibly upset Milo fans and protesters. There were students, organizers, and unaffiliated individuals working to defuse these tense situations but the level of anger exhibited by the Milo fans was intense. It was at this point that a rumor began circulating that the massive march, largely lead by Socialist Alternative and which had been happening at the same time, had finally decided they had enough of parading around downtown and were heading our way reinforce us. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” I muttered to myself but just 15 minutes later, my doubts were dispelled as a thousand or so people began streaming into Red Square. We greeted them with several minutes of enthusiastic cheers and chants and the electricity of this moment is a feeling that I will never forget. This was the exclamation on the night for us, the moment that made it clear to the remaining 3-400 Milo fans that they were not going to be allowed into the venue and that we had won. This was the flood, the deluge.

What followed was the aggradation, or rather the revealing of what exactly the outcome of this deluge had been. As the breathless yet boisterous marchers continued to file into Red Square, I heard a handful of screams arise from within the middle of the crowd and watched as a group of about a dozen people sprinted out of Red Square. Noticing the red hats some of these people were wearing, we cheered out of assumption that they had chosen to run at the sight of the march arriving. Unbeknownst to us at the time, they were running away from the scene of a shooting that had targeted a member of the IWW who was in the crowd attempting to keep both sides away from each other.

As we continued to hold that front line for another 30 minutes, just inches away from heavily armored SPD officers, somebody held a phone up to my face to show me a tweet from SPD, the same SPD who had officers next to me, stating that there had been a shooting at Red Square. At first I just flat out didn’t believe it, choosing instead to try and figure out what letter of the Twitter handled was fudged to make it appear as if it were an official account but it quickly became clear to me that it was true; one of our own had been shot. It was a disorienting feeling going from a state of victorious celebration to one of fear and concern, and then to one of anger. Angry that somebody had been shot, angry that the police let the entire ordeal continue, anger that none of the 100+ police officers within a 300ft radius had taken the time to inform us that an active shooter was in the area but then the thought occurred to me; this was simply a continuation of the status quo.

As the proverbial waters of the night’s events receded, what was left behind in the wake was telling. I saw the blood-stained bricks of the now aptly named Red Square glistening in their representation of the violence of the far right, I saw the glaring inability of both UW and UWPD as institutions to act in any meaningful way to protect people, and I saw a reflection of the cost that was extracted from us in order to hamstring the ability for a undeniable bigot to organizer on campus on those same bricks.

Luckily, aggradation is not merely the material deposited by a flood but also the increase in elevation caused by this deposition and that is what I have found myself focusing on post-#J20. While the physical pain and hardship our comrade has and will continue to endure as a result of that night is incalculable, it can serve as a means of increasing the elevation of our struggle against oppression and hierarchy. The victim of this violence has already, in recognition of the inability of those institutions to represent and protect us, declared an unwillingness to cooperate with the state in any potential attempts to press charges against their shooter opting instead to pursue a restorative justice process. That is the elevation gain to me, the opportunity that we can build upon. May the blood that our friend and comrade shed on the bricks of Red Square lend us elevation, strength, and autonomy in a world that seems to only move deeper towards the depths of social disintegration. Autonomy is the ladder upon which we can climb out of those depths and for me, that ladder had been obscured prior to #J20 by the social alluvium of alienation and hopelessness but no more, never again, not on my watch.

-An emboldened Seattle anarchist

---