A week ago Saturday, I went to downtown L.A. for a war protest. I had originally planned on going so I could cover it for a class assignment, but by the time I got down there, my motivation had shifted. I was already there and I am against the war, so what the heck, I might as well get my parking meter money’s worth, right?
There was a lot to take in. People were dressed like Death, Dick Cheney and a Gitmo prisoner tied to a street sign. There were even little kids there, mini-hippies condemning the Bush administration. I couldn’t help but wonder if those children knew what they were doing or if they even cared.
The kids were just the first thing I came across that made me go, “Hmm.” When I left later that day, I did so with a handful of fliers. One was for a Communist newsletter (which I had no interest in, so don’t worry), while another was for legalizing marijuana (which reminded me that I need to get a Costco card). And yet another pamphlet read that I was paying too much for electricity and that I could start making my own.
Huh?
As a whole, the protest evaded the grips of commercialization. A Verizon billboard that loomed over the crowd served as a contrast to the gathering but never infiltrated it. Yet the flier for that electricity company smacked of opportunism, which was rather unsettling.
But I digress. Of course you’ll get a bad impression of a protest if you focus on the pimps and the chuds and this protest was so much more than them.
When the march began, I found myself immersed in it. Whether I was looking forward or behind, people stretched as far as my eyes could see. All sorts of people: old hippies, new hippies, even big stars. I saw Shawn Hunter himself, Rider Strong, marching. And V, (presumably) with vendetta, even stepped down from celluloid to the streets.
As I walked the street to a soundtrack of chants and snare drums, someone handed me a sign to hold. Usually, holding signs ain’t my thing, but when in Rome. Except I wasn’t just among Romans. I was one myself.
It’s a strange feeling, standing up for what you believe in. It’s a strange feeling, standing up for anything, really. Working at the newspaper, I’ve seen a fair share of letters come in, decrying the lack of activism seen on our campus, or any other for that matter.
These letters always seemed like testimonials from old dinosaurs, reminiscing on how things were before the asteroid hit.
Then there was the Friendship Walk on Oct. 24.
I was eating my PB&J at the Beach Hut when the march passed by. In the crowd was my editor, Duke Rescola. While I don’t want to call Rescola a dinosaur (especially since he’ll be reading this), he’s at least a woolly mammoth. But it wasn’t the people marching who stuck with me. It was the people on the outside – the ones berating them.
“This isn’t Berkeley!”
“Don’t they know they’re not accomplishing anything?”
This wasn’t apathy. This was disgust. This was contempt. And this made my stomach hurt.
“They’re trying.” Who said that? Oh, I did. That’s not like me.
What do you mean they’re not accomplishing anything? The people accomplishing nothing are the people attempting nothing. The people who turn on the news and see that 30 more people have died in Iraq and change the channel, thinking that it’s a story they’ve heard a thousand times before and simply got used to.
People like me.
As the Friendship Walkers marched on, I realized that Rescola and his peers aren’t dinosaurs or woolly mammoths. They’re more like sharks. They adapt and evolve as the world changes around them, and they survive.
It’s the rest of us – the ones who sit by and live our lives like seat-fillers – who are going to turn to dust.
Stephen Sabetti is a senior journalism major, a contributing writer and copy editor for the Daily Forty-Niner.
