Trying to figure it out

I was very afraid when I witness what happened to our city during the G20 summit last summer. It made a crack in my sense of trust of the authorities.

I taught my children to respect the police, the law, the government. And I felt betrayed by all. We may never get to know the whole story of why such heavy handed tactics were used, why they created such drama in our peaceful streets, why the went out of their way, with our money, to disrupt a maximum of lives that week, why they arrested so many people because of maybe one hundred black block, if there were even that many.

Why are they so afraid of the black block, who are essential a non violent group? The word violence was misused over and over in relation to the protesters but the only violence that was used was by the police. The correct word would be vandalism. Yes, they vandalize property to make a point, it is a symbolic action. I am not advocating this action, I am explaining that the black block pose no threat to people, only to property. Their logic is that our property (our planet) is being vandalized by the members of the G8/G20 and the corporations that they represent.

My conclusion is that there are at least two different ways of thinking about this. There's the "you fuck with me and I'll fuck with you" attitude. Or there's "let's try to figure this out" attitude.

The police and the black block fit in the same category.

I usually try to fit into the second category although, last summer, my fear, anger and despair, drove me more into the first. I actually cut my hair because of what happened to the women who were arrested. I cut it myself. I wanted to somehow cut something away from me that linked me in anyway to the way my sisters were treated. Again, it was symbolic. I am not one to throw a brick through a window. I would like to raise my children peacefully without a criminal record, thank you very much. But hearing that young women were threatened with gang rape, were strip searched and sexually abused, not even provided with proper sanitary equipment during the 24 hours they were held, was too much for me to take, without doing something.

As a young man who is very close to me, who was threatened, insulted, searched, gassed and fired at during the Toronto protests, said, "I will never be the same. I was shaken to my core".

Me too.