Code Pink Journals CodePINK Journals

Work 4 Peace,Hold All Life Sacred,Eliminate Violence! I am on my mobile version of the door-to-door, going town-to-town holding readings/gatherings/discussions of my book "But What Can I Do?" This is my often neglected blog mostly about my travels since 9/11 as I engage in dialogue and actions. It is steaming with my opinions, insights, analyses toward that end of holding all life sacred, dismantling the empire and eliminating violence while creating the society we want ALL to thrive in

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Getting arrested with Cornell West - to be continued

I'm thrilled & deeply honored to stand on the steps of our U.S. Supreme Court and be arrested with Cornell West in the name of Martin Luther King!

We do not have our First Amendment Rights to stand on the steps of this Supreme Court, who has extended corporations' rights of "personhood" first granted to them in the late 1800's believe it or not, to include fuckin First Amendment Rights for them! It's unbelievable.

Around 3:00pm, Cornell West and 6 womyn are arrested along with 12 other men. Two of the womyn are first put in with the men because they have short hair and are wearing what the supreme court police must believe are men's clothes! I have to inform the police that the two are womyn, not men.

The court police herd us into a large classroom and continue to be friendly and overly 'nice' to us, making jokes, politely requesting our compliance, waiting patiently for us to be ready to comply, bending over backwards to be friendly, as they book us.

We get photographed with a regular camera with an officer & without, searched - patted down - several times, our possessions listed and put into large plastic bags, and our pictures retaken digitally - including our irises scanned - with an officer and without.

Several hours later, expecting to be released, we are instead picked up by a paddy wagon and shuffled off to the metropolitan police and a city jail. The womyn police officers there are genuinely kind, asking us if we want to stay together and then putting us together in a cell with several other womyn. Continued next blog

Womyn's Area attacked by Patriarchy!

I spent over an hour with the break-out committee that organized our returning to the entire plaza. We have moved to the bottom (eastern) side in order to make room for the events that were taking place here this weekend - events that were scheduled before the park gave us the 4 month permit to be here.

Again, I am the only womon on this committee of white men. I push hard for a womyn's area and for no smoking areas. We are only a committee so we will bring our ideas to the g.a. for their consensus. 

Tig wants someone to draw a map of our recommendations. I have drawn one but it is not 'fancy', just plain. He gets a young white male artist type to draw it. This fellow then posts it at the Information Tent, prior to our bringing it to the G.A. for consensus.

AND he has conveniently left out both the womyn's area AND the smoking & no smoking areas. I am arguing with him about putting it in when Kevin walks by and says "of course, put it in".

The young man reluctantly and petulantly colors in a small square of pink and writes "special women's area" underneath. The next time I see it, the pink has been shaded over with black, but the "special" remains.

We have agreed not to move the tents until 3pm but when I turn around before lunch, there people are putting their tents randomly around, and in the designated womyn's section.

I ask the men who own the two tents in our section if they would mind moving. Neither one of them mind, in fact they are supportive but the other men around are screaming "stay where you are", and "segregation" and "you are being divisive". Good thing I'm tough - and  really do not care if they approve or not.

These men here are so threatened by a womyn's area - and two of the vfp womyn also are raging, saying it is unnecessary for THEM to sleep in a womyn's area so they don't see the reason why we would want one.

The consciousness is so low, as Kevyn keeps saying, it's like the womyn's movement - or civil rights movement - never happened.