During the 12th week of the isolation, I started getting up earlier to go for my morning runs. Because of the curfew, I couldn't go too early. I waited until five o'clock to leave the house, as I didn't want to be assaulted by the roving bands of police that have been rioting all over the city against #blacklivesmatter. But even in a sea of unrest, five o'clock continues to be a very serene time; the streets are open to anyone who wants to use them. The park is even emptier than usual and that much more beautiful.
As I considered the open streets and the ongoing protests, it occurred to me that the former had to some extent facilitated the latter. These protests, as many have noted, seem somehow 'different'; more spontaneous and decentralized, harder for the police to control. I was struck by the idea that today's streets, because of the virus and the greatly reduced traffic of the lockdown, more closely resemble streets that existed before the automobile, the kinds of (car-free) streets that hosted revolutionary uprisings in the biggest cities in Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries. When streets have less (car) traffic, police have a harder time controlling protesters: the streets lack the constant (and dangerous) barricade to which we are all accustomed, quartering the city with hundreds of miles of what might as well be electrified razor wire. To have this barrier removed, even partially, has provided an unprecedented (at least in this century) opportunity for protesters to move, to assemble, to challenge the (racist in so many ways) status quo. I also wondered if this connection between open streets and policing might also help to explain the mayor's maddening intransigence on both issues. He -- and others of his ilk, at once arrogant, feckless, and sinister under a guise of compassion -- clearly understand that traffic creates a kind of self-enforcing police state; if you remove traffic from the equation, the ability of protesters to maneuver increases dramatically, which in turns leads to increasingly desperate, violent policing (because they know they are losing).
Like many ideas, this one was depressing and exciting to consider. The city was slated to begin opening on Monday: traffic was already increasing; as with so much in this administration, there was no plan. But as with Black Lives Matter, there seemed to be increasing recognition that a plan was needed. Would these protests lead to meaningful policy changes? I hoped so. Or I wanted to be hopeful, but I cautioned myself. I've spent most of my (increasingly long) life being disappointed with the outcome of protests (which is never a reason not to protest -- or to support them -- but just a reflection of my experience, or perhaps just the nature of history).
The park -- which is managed by an agency that receives less than one percent of the city's budget (versus almost seven percent for the NYPD) -- did not prognosticate.
On an unrelated note, I recorded a new Isolation Song. (Is anyone else still isolating? I know the answer is yes, but sometimes it feels like the world has already opened, notwithstanding the risks.) This song was inspired by a pair of cats/brothers I read about on Twitter, probably five or six months ago, who were surrendered at a shelter by their owner, who could no longer afford to care for them. To be on social media is to come across sad stories of abandoned pets all the time, but something about the expression of one of these cats (he and his brother had had been separated for some reason) -- fearful, uncomprehending -- haunted me. And what kind of name is Stepi? Some questions will never be answered.
If the video doesn't feed through, here's the link.
But this week, as I recorded the song, I realized that it's the same expression you see on people all over the world who are being thrown in jail for the crime of being alive.
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