I Know What the Riot Is

Once when I was seventeen I asked my mom if she wanted to be happy, or if she wanted to be right. I’d heard someone say it at an Alanon meeting, and I thought I might finally get somewhere if I asked her. She did laugh - but without missing a beat she said, “Being right makes me happy.” That’s when I thought - I’ll never get through to this woman. Which was very nearly true.

My mother didn’t know I was going to Alanon meetings, I used to sneak into them like I was sneaking into the Treasury as a regular citizen who hadn’t been elected to any kind of government office. (I’m getting ahead of myself, it’s the seething rage.) I snuck into the meetings because Alanon is for family members of alcoholics, but my mother would not admit she was an alcoholic, so if she’d seen me ducking into the local church basement - or if any of her friends had seen me - she would have been irate.

Which is wild, right? Because I was just trying to get some help, but I wasn’t even supposed to do that. In her mind, that would have been a betrayal. I was supposed to pretend her version of reality was real, even if I had bruises from another reality that proved otherwise. I was not to believe my own eyes, or trust the tender purple finger-shaped circles on my upper arm that I didn’t know I had until I saw them in the mirror. They were not the first bruises, they were not the twentieth, they were far from the worst of it.

There are a lot of people like this in the world. People who demand you accept their version of reality if you want their love. That isn’t really love, of course, but sometimes it’s the best you’re going to get from someone, and if that someone is your mother, you might accept it. I found as I got older I really couldn’t do it anymore, not the way my mother wanted me to, anyway. If she said something hurtful, I couldn’t pretend otherwise - the pretending was making me sick.

I moved to Los Angeles so that I could have my mother, but also have the space to exhale. To un-grip. It turns out if you let someone break your heart for the better part of twenty-five years, you’re probably going to need some distance and time to figure out how you do life a different way. I could talk to her on the phone many times a week, but manage to avoid the times when she’d be drunk. If she said something vicious, I could hang up, and text that I’d lost the signal a few minutes later.

When you’re used to people who make unreasonable demands, it seems like a normal thing for people to do. That’s why there are generational cycles of abuse and someone who has to break them eventually. Sometimes you repeat what was done to you, sometimes you move toward people who are going to treat you the way you’re used to being treated, because that feels like home. That’s my way of saying it took me a while.

I used to be fascinated by people who were fascinated with themselves. Usually they were the kind who’d swing between grandiosity and self-loathing, and I’d ride the ride, too. Confirm it when they thought they were the greatest there ever was, lift them up when they were sure no one had ever been more of a worthless waste of space. I used to make excuses for people who hurt me. It was just their own pain. They didn’t mean it. They were sorry, they said so, just like last time.

At least they said sorry, that was more than some people could muster.

Eventually, though, other things happened. I had children of my own, for one, and realized that I might not be able to go back in time and have a mom who loved me unconditionally, and made me feel safe - but I could be that mom, or try to be. I saw how innocent my kids were, how open and trusting - and I realized I had been like that once, too. We all were at some point.

Some of us had our hearts broken, and some of us were received with hugs and awe and bedtime stories. Moms who packed lunches and signed permission slips and paid attention - and delighted in every new thing we did or said. Dads who listened when we talked. Parents who would never leave finger-shaped bruises anywhere.

But for the people who did not fare so well, maybe because of their family of origin, maybe for other reasons, sometimes pain runs underneath the surface. It seeps into the mind, it settles around the heart like a river of doubt, a sea of not good enough, a rage of rejection. Hurt people hurt people as the saying goes. It’s not an excuse, it’s just how it is.

Every ugly thing that happens at the hands of another person - happens because that person is in pain. Not everyone manages the pain well. It’s hard, people get tired or they don’t find the thing that offers them relief - or they do find some relief, but they choose a thing that leads to a different kind of pain. Like my mom did.

The only relief that really works as far as I know, is being willing to be uncomfortable for some amount of time. The Dark Night of the Soul or whatever you want to call it. The space between the life that isn’t working, and the life you know you have to figure out, but can’t even imagine - even if it means you have to head out to sea in a rickety boat with one oar, and hope there’s a lighthouse somewhere that will bring you home to yourself. The resolve to follow some ache in your heart, even if it makes no sense, just because everything inside you is saying yes, do that crazy thing. Make that logic-defying decision. Flip the script, who cares, it’s your one life.

The people who don’t do that, or can’t do it - I’m pretty sure some kind of thorn takes up residence in their hearts. I don’t think it forms out of spite, I think it’s the kind of thing that grows when you start to force yourself to harden. A calcification, but also maybe an invitation to make a different choice before it becomes a way of life. I imagine eventually it becomes hard to take a deep breath. It must be difficult to see other people who might not have everything, but have managed to hold onto their tenderness.

It’s the only thing that makes sense to me, and I’ve given it a lot of thought. There are people who believe that human beings are naturally violent and selfish, that we’ve always been that way from the beginning of time, but I don’t believe that. I think maybe some human beings enter this world with a proclivity to be more one way than another, but I lean more toward nurture than nature when it comes to the way we form and the kind of people we become. Which isn’t fair, in case that needed to be said.

If you grew up hearing that love is only pure when it happens between a man and a woman, or in a place where Confederate flags flew, if you grew up in a household where people used racial slurs or made sexist jokes or listened to Howard Stern on the radio, or Jerry Falwell, or watched All in the Family or The Mary Tyler Moore Show, if you read Atlas Shrugged because it was on the bookshelf or you read The Color Purple…all these things matter - but eventually it’s up to you. It’s up to you to decide what you believe and who you love and what you think - and who you’re going to be in this world. You follow your heart, or you turn away from it.

These things are on my mind because we find ourselves in the strangest of chapters, don’t we?

Sometimes I wonder if Kellyanne Conway tore a line into the space/time continuum when she uttered the words “Alternative Facts!” - as if we’re in some mashup sci-fi horror fantasy of the brothers’ Grimm and Blade Runner, and that was actually a horrible spell she sent out into the ether.

It feels like so many of our family and friends got sucked into the matrix on the other side of the veil. Just like that, thirty percent of us are in one reality, thirty-one percent are in the other, and everyone else is floating in space having kombuchas like everything is cool, or opting out because, burn it all down. Well, it’s burning. Good luck out there! We have a whole set of people who insist we accept their version of reality, even when we have the bruises to prove the reality we’re in is the one that’s real. They feel exactly the same way. It’s mind-boggling and exhausting, and it becomes more dangerous by the day. Here in the states, we may lose our democracy over it.

I’m in Los Angeles, I never left once I moved here in 2001, which means I’ve lived here almost as long as I lived in New York City, my hometown. Not quite, but almost. This week, I’ve seen the way things are being portrayed here. You’d think we’re in a war zone and my god if I could tell you the way you are being duped. I've seen the word “riots” over and over again, but there are no riots here. There are protests, and those are two very different things. Words matter, especially when you aren’t standing in a place where you can open your eyes and see for yourself. Images matter, too.

I guess I keep trying to reach people on the other side of the veil because I know we’re screwed without them. Trickle-down economics never worked. I was a teenager in the 80’s, I’ve been watching since Reagan, so I’ve had a birdseye view. No wealth trickled down. You know what trickles down? Hatred and bigotry.

I went down to the protest in DTLA last Sunday to see for myself what’s happening. I took videos and pictures so I could show people how it actually is, because the media will go running to the burning building - because, clicks, advertising, but also - the media is now (mostly) owned by the people in the pocket of the president. Hello Jeff you fucking traitorous POS. Have enough money yet? Hi ABC, way to totally cave when Terry Moran says the most obvious thing anyone with eyes can see. Also, welcome to Substack, Terry. You’re in good company here with, let’s see, Dan Rather, Jim Acosta, Joy-Ann Reid, Katie Phang and so many other prominent journalists who have been betrayed by what was once a pillar against the erosion of the truth.

That used to be the point of journalism, and people who owned newspapers and news media - to let the public know the truth. But like everything else, once it became about money, I suppose it was a matter of time before it was poisoned. I could go off on this for an entire essay, but I won’t. Bottom line, I think thirty to fifty percent of us understood there was a difference between straight journalism - I’m here on the ground, reporting the facts - and news programs that leaned left or right. Then there’s the rage-baiting program that uses the word “News” on the end, but was not and is not news at all. Rupert Murdoch, if there is a hell, there’s a whole suite waiting for you.

Now we have giant media conglomerates who were once home to people still trying to cover the news, left or right-leaning or not - bending the knee to a man who wants to be king, and sacrificing people who have literally put their lives on the line to go to unsafe, war-torn places to show us what’s happening.

Okay, so I went to DTLA to see for myself.

The Metropolitan Detention Center is where many people are being detained, and where family members, friends, and the community at large have gathered over the last week to express their heartache. I wanted to see with my own eyes how things were, since I was seeing and reading so many things on the internet, like everyone else.

Los Angeles is spread out in neighborhoods, it's sprawling. I live in Santa Monica, by the beach. The protest I went to is in DTLA, fourteen miles away. I taught my yoga class Sunday morning (also in Santa Monica) and went for lunch with my childhood sisterfriend, Wendy. Some crazy way she was up for going downtown with me, because she’s a yes person. She’ll do things like that.

I guess I should explain, the way things were being presented, it made sense to have some trepidation. I’m sure you saw the pictures, too. We thought we might be heading into a war zone, but she knew I was going, so she was going. You should get yourself a Wendy if you don’t have one. In Santa Monica it was a normal, sunny, beautiful day. You wouldn’t have known a thing was wrong. We took the 10 freeway (the 10 if you’re local, hi SNL), but just to give you a sense, between Santa Monica and DTLA, you’d pass through many neighborhoods if you took surface streets and drove like a roving lunatic. I said roving on purpose.

Let’s just say if you went west to east which is what I did, but also wanted to include neighborhoods north and south along the way, you’d be passing places like Beverly Hills, Studio City, Hollywood and Burbank to the north, and Culver City (along your line of travel) but also Inglewood, Hawthorne, Compton to the south. Just to try to give you a little context. The very very extremely important thing for you to know is these protests that are all over the news are happening in downtown Los Angeles - in a one-square-mile zone. Here is a map of Los Angeles for those of you who like maps. I circled the protest zone, but it’s so tiny, I added an arrow.

I don’t know who made this map. I tried to find out. I’d credit if I could.

Most of the protests and police presence (along with the National Guard and the Marines) are confined to 6 blocks near the Metropolitan Detention Center. SIX BLOCKS. All caps for the Fox News watchers in the back.

The thing is, if you are anywhere else in Los Angeles other than the protests (and there are smaller protests that happen in places like Westwood and Inglewood and Paramount, but they are a LOT smaller), you would not know anything is happening at all. Everywhere you go, it is sunny and beautiful, and people are going about their lives. They’re going to work, they’re going to the gym, or to the beach or out to lunch. Los Angeles is not on fire, and these are not riots. If you need a refresher on what a riot looks like, or what an “insurrection” is, here you go. I want to warn you, it’s very painful, but if you’re going to use a word, you should understand what it means.

Words matter. If we’d gotten down to the Metropolitan Detention Center only to find that things were violent and out of control and the LAPD was outnumbered and overpowered, I would have accepted that’s how it was. We parked in Lot G at Union Station, and walked toward the building, and as we walked, all we saw were other people, and not that many of them. Some had flags - American flags, Mexican flags, Pride flags, and some had signs.

Other people just seemed to be locals, having their usual Sunday. As we got closer to the detention center, the police presence became known. And then more known. And then so known it was hard to know anything else. Here:

There was and is so much police presence in such a concentrated area it was hard to fathom. The LAPD was there in full force as was the LASD. The freeway off ramps were closed from many directions by cop cars blocking the way, and multiple police officers. Most were in riot gear. Helicopters and drones flew overhead. Meanwhile, there were just…people, with flags and signs.

There were some folks standing and sitting around the detention center, and some along the overpasses. Cars going by underneath would honk in support, and people would wave their signs. There was a vandalized Waymo from the night before, and I suppose we can and should talk about that. This was before the five Waymos were set on fire, and the lime green scooters were thrown on top.

The Waymo we saw had graffiti all over it. Colorful comments about ICE, I’ll let you imagine. There were some people standing around the Waymo laughing, because there was a siren going off that would pause for an automated message in a robotic female voice:

Unsafe behavior detected. Authorities may be contacted.

It was dystopian and very 2001. I am not condoning vandalism, but I have a problem with people who are outraged about that, but not about mothers being ripped away from their children. If you are more concerned about five driverless cars than countless human beings whose lives are being torn apart, I don’t have a lot of energy to explain why I think your values need an overhaul.

There’s also some speculation about the Waymos that’s worth mentioning, since those are the only cars that were set on fire, and since it was clearly an intentional act of civil disobedience. Waymos have cameras in all directions, both inside and outside the vehicle, and they are recording all the time. Police departments can subpoena footage to help solve crimes, and they do.

As companies continue to make public roadways their testing grounds for these vehicles, everyone should understand them for what they are—rolling surveillance devices that expand existing widespread spying technologies,” Chris Gilliard, Visiting Research Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center, told VICE News. “Law enforcement agencies already have access to automated license plate readers, geofence warrants, Ring Doorbell footage, as well as the ability to purchase location data. This practice will extend the reach of an already pervasive web of surveillance.

Recently, the New York Times reported that ICE has just deepened its partnership with Palantir, a company ICE has been working with since the Obama administration. In April, Palantir was awarded a new $30 million dollar deal under the current administration - expanding the scope of the work they’ve been doing, and providing ICE with real-time tracking information about undocumented immigrants. So, Minority Report for abuelas. Tracking people in real time. You understand where this leads, correct?

The speculation about the Waymos is that they’ve become a symbol for this Big Brother, AI-obsessed billionaire boys club that wants to dehumanize and privatize everything, including our already broken immigration system. Now they won’t even need people to turn their neighbors in, machines will do it.

When I started to see the way the protests were being portrayed in the media, I could not believe it. Yes, there was vandalism Sunday night. That’s the night the Waymos burned and there was some looting. Over 100 arrests were made, and they set a curfew of 8pm. Protesters come during the day, from 6am-8pm. The protests are peaceful. Anyone who is still in the area after 8pm is subject to arrest.

As I started to share what was happening downtown, and explain why we are so outraged about the way our friends and neighbors are being treated, as I shared pictures and videos over social media - along with a tremendous outpouring of support - I got the other stuff you’d imagine, from people behind the veil. People asking why so many protesters were carrying Mexican flags, for example. I almost don’t know what to say, because how can anyone have to ask?

First, it’s important to understand, California is huge. We have 39 million people in our population, and to give that some context, we’d need to add up the populations of 22 smaller states to get to 39 million people. It’s not a coincidence that they are coming for California first. Sending troops here when we don’t need them. Turning our military against its own citizens. Overriding the governor and the mayor. Handcuffing our senator for going to a public press conference and asking the Secretary of Defense, who was in our state, a question. It’s his job to do that.

Twenty-seven percent of our population is foreign-born. People of Mexican origin make up 30% of our state’s population. California used to belong to Mexico. Los Angeles means “City of Angels” in Spanish. The Mexican community is being targeted by ICE. That’s why there are so many Mexican flags, as there should be.

Amongst many others, ICE agents are chasing down berry pickers on farms. You like organic raspberries for your smoothie, Sasha? You don’t “do politics”? Everything is political, honey. The way the food gets to your plate is political.

People wanted to talk about the damn cars. Again, sorry about the Waymos, but people’s lives are being destroyed. The LAPD has it handled. They have tear gas canisters, pepper spray bullets, rubber bullets. By the looks of it, they might have things a little too handled, since there are journalists getting shot with rubber bullets for trying to report the news, and women getting shot for trying to go home at night. Peaceful protesters being “kettled” by the LAPD before curfew, then arrested for failing to disperse. Peaceful protesters being hit with batons by LAPD on horseback when they try to get out of the way. Not all the LAPD, but wtf guys? We do not need the National Guard or the Marines out here, to “help” the LAPD or the LASD cover 6 blocks, to the tune of $134 million dollars.

People who want to spend $134 million dollars when they don’t have to, or $45 million dollars on a military parade no one wants (except one deranged, needy, ego-driven, mentally ill old man), are not people who care about waste, fraud or abuse. A president who sends ICE in to deport good people in the most inhumane way, upsetting the populace, creating a crisis, and then amping up the tension with troops no one wants or needs is not a good leader, he’s a guy trying to distract everyone from last week's news cycle. He doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process.

People who are okay with a drug-addled South African-born, unelected billionaire waltzing into the Treasury to take our Social Security numbers, but want to turn around and yell that Brown people need to “follow the rules” and “do it the right way” are telling on themselves, and it isn’t pretty. At all.

I had people yelling at me about Dems and how they want to let their city burn. No. No one wants their city to burn, how can anyone believe that? What are you watching that makes you believe that? We love our city, and it actually did burn a few months ago. When that happened, these same people had no compassion for us. They said we deserved it. Fuck us, we’d just buy new mansions next week. It broke my fucking heart, while I was busy trying to run clothing drives, and comfort friends who literally had their houses burn down, and while I spent 12 days on high alert not knowing if I’d have to evacuate myself. These people did not care. And that’s the thing I want to say the most -

You should watch out for that. You should guard your heart against that kind of hatred and bigotry, that lack of compassion. Because I can tell you something. When the grid goes out in Texas, I don’t think to myself, good, fuck those people. I truly do not. I think, oh god, I hope they’re going to be okay, and I see if there’s somewhere I can donate, or some way I can help. When I hear about a hurricane in Florida or tornado in Kansas, I don’t think, good, fuck those fucking people, I think, my god, I hope they’re going to be okay. How the fuck can I help?

So while you’re busy “owning the libs” and talking about “lib tears” and screaming about how libs and leftists are ruining the country and “illegals” are stealing the jobs, and how can dems want these rapists and criminals on the streets…please understand you are falling for the same version of reality you fell for this week if you believed Los Angeles was a war zone. And even when I post videos from the actual protest, people still scream at me that I’m not telling the truth. It’s amazing, but not in a good way. Why would anyone want their city to burn? Why would anyone want their children to be unsafe?

We always get to decide who we are going to be and how we’re going to respond. Since November, I’ve felt dread. Since January, I’ve felt shock, fear, horror, grief and depression. But now? I’d rather be in the crisis than waiting for it. I’d rather know what I’m dealing with than hope I’m wrong. These people are showing themselves all over the place. Deporting four-year-olds with cancer? Gutting Medicaid? Turning this country into some kind of Big Brother AI Police State?

He’s not going to win here with his weird cosplaying fascism. You want to know how I know? Because we are already doing the one thing he doesn’t ever plan for, because he doesn’t understand it, because his heart is one big, painful thorn. We are showing up with love. We are showing up with kindness. I realized today, the key to this whole thing is to meet their aggressive energy with an equal or greater amount of loving energy.

That’s the thing about Los Angeles. We will Flower Child the shit out of this thing. We will go to these protests and make flower crowns, we will blow bubbles, we will bring our rainbow flags and our joy, we will dance, we will sparkle, we might even bring cookies. I might, anyway. We will make these optics so dumb, even his supporters will have to wonder what the fuck is going on. Why they are being asked to contribute their hard-earned dollars - $135 million of them - to send troops to a state that is dancing around the people in riot gear.

That’s the riot, friends. How easy it is to win, no matter what happens. We win with our hearts and our minds. We reject their version of reality and we show up with a much better vision. Don’t be scared. Meet the moment with your wide open heart. They want to be right. We want to be happy and joyful, and we know how. That energy is contagious. Maybe they’ll get sick of the hatred, the chest-pounding, the lack of kindness. It doesn't look like a lot of fun.

See you in the fucking streets. Stay safe. Tits up, elbows out. We’ve got this.

---

---

Friends, if you’re going to a No Kings protest, please stay safe out there. I’m going to one up in Santa Cruz, where I’ve been moving my kid out of his dorm room. We’re driving home after the protest. I’m excited to have him home for the summer. I’m also excited to let you know I’ll be having a Come As You Are Conversation this Tuesday, June 17th at 4:30pm PST - going Off the Page with the fantastic Kate Mapother. It’s going to be great, I hope you can join us. It’s good to have things to be excited about right now. Sending you all a lot of love, see you in the comments!