I’ve been to two protest BLM protest and no kings day celebration protest. BLM protest was intimidating at first because I Parked close to the event and police had us surrounded and were gasing us, but that ended with them putting their shield and bats down as symbolic way of ending hostilities. No Kings day was way more chill and no confrontation with authorities that I witnessed but some happened before I got there, other than that it was mostly talking to people and expressing yourself in public.
There’s fun stories
I found them fun in the 90s. Now that I’m in my 50s and take longer to recover from bumps, bruises, and batons than I did in my 20s, it’s not as fun.
Yep! My first bruises from a police baton stayed with me for almost 2 months (they got me in the ribs) but I showed them off with pride! The comradery at protests is amazing, and the contacts you make are for a lifetime!
No, I only attend out of necessity. I don’t enjoy crowds or confrontation.
When you protest, you’re advocating against something that has to be bad enough to get people together. That’s not fun. I really wish I didn’t have to go to No Kings, it would have been nicer to do anything else. That being said, I was there with friends and we made the best of it.
I’ve been to many protests, and oddly enough i enjoy the feeling of freedom. Normal traffic rules don’t apply and there are no cars, suddely you can walk in the middle of the street which is normally a forbidden space. You can dance, you can shoot fireworks in the middle of town, you can do loads of things that you normally can’t.
Normally there’s a nebulous sense that this space doesn’t belong to us, it belongs to landlords and the state maybe? You don’t feel a sense of ownership. But when it’s being taken over by people in an unorganized way, now it feels like this space belongs to you.
And yes i’m french lmao
The French know how to show the state who’s boss. You love to see it