Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho And the Walls Came Tumbling Down

It seems last year was caves and this year is resistance.

Listen. It's very dispiriting. But also.

The situation was this - and I understand the situation a little for reasons. The reasons:

The game store where we all used to meet to roll the dice is by the airport - right between there and some really unfortunate housing projects. Kind of a food desert. Kind of a messed up place to be. But cheap rent on storefronts for sure. So next to the game shop, for a long time, was this Somali restaurant - and it was REAL Somali - as in for & by the local Somali community. My family style Arabic barely got me a non-threatening glance (I know arabic isn't Somali or whatever dialect is spoken by African Horners - but it's still kind of spoken around & most people know about as much as I do). Anyhow - their goat was good - their rice was terrible. Always their parking lot was full of cabs - because the Somali community around here is made up of a lot of cab drivers and we kind of learned that, all about that by proximity.

So We're marching up the entryway to the airport - which I've previously walked up out of a mad rage of weird feelings (it's pretty weird to walk out of the airport- you factually may have to run across 2 or 4 lanes of freeway traffic) - so I kind of knew what was up and pointed out to my friend we were with that - well, this is a dead end route and if we want to go back on the train, we're going back the other way. Which we eventually did -but I was interested to see the Black & Red team leading the parade - it's interesting because this is march #2 for me this month & #3 for me in life - and I don't tire of seeing the fluid dynamism of groups of people and how some, who've trained & practiced, kind of lead the flock. (I did honestly think of the judas goat, truly. I don't sign up any petition, for example- because how many people asking for signatures are FBI? Probably a lot, that's my thought). But the black & red anarchists did a fair job of leading a march & chanting.

My experience of marching - the women's march the police were even a little smiley. This time at the airport there was a much more cold, aggressive look coming off of them. When seeking justice for Tamir - then the police were extremely hostile and did get shitty with people and it was intimidating and frightening.

This time - the cabs all rolled through the crowd - the cabbies had gone to get their families - to see what was being done - to see us and they came through with their fists up and waving and I for real got moved, with a feeling. Seeing people who would have been and might be put out and who I take to be part of the fabric of my city and knowing that there's a lot of us, who will do what we can for each other. It was good. I'm sentimental and I choked up.

I really don't know what else to do. Besides this. It's ceremonial, I think, demonstrating displeasure, finding the others. We talked to the people getting off at our train stop - a little. I wasn't very chatty. I try, but I'm a body in the crowd - my participation is a bit on the quiet side, but I'm very, very present. I didn't know what to say and we all shook our heads wondering if we'd be doing this again next week.

I mean, I really don't know. It's gone all crazy.