In this episode, we have an unparalleled glimpse into the inner thoughts of an individual who participated in the first uprising on the day of Trump’s inauguration of his first term.
Much of our understanding of ANTIFA is often shaped by the media or critics, and we seldom gain direct insight into the perspectives of individual members.
Below, you will find an exceptional moment of candid vulnerability. This provides us with a unique glimpse into a day of action, free from the usual propaganda often found in communications aimed at an external audience.
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The following is an anonymous personal diary entry first published within the pages of an internal ANTIFA zine in 2021 to mark the start of the Biden era.
January 20, 2017
On the morning of January 20, 2017, I stood at the intersection of 12th Street and L Street in downtown Washington, DC. Before me, a double line of riot police separated me from the people surrounded in the kettle targeting participants in the massive black bloc march that had just torn through the city opposing the inauguration of Donald Trump.
The narrow strip of no man’s land that separated us from the front line of armoured mercenaries was strewn with abandoned black apparel—sweatshirts, windbreakers, masks, gloves, scarves, bags. Not knowing what was in store for the arrestees—as it turned out, practically all of them were charged with eight or more felonies apiece, though none of those charges ultimately stuck—I figured it might be better if the street were not littered with things that might be misconstrued as evidence. I began to gather up the debris.
Plucking these items from right in front of the line of officers was a risky proposition. What if the police grabbed me and pulled me into the kettle, too? Trying to look nonchalant, I managed to snatch up a scarf, then a pair of sunglasses. One of the bigger items appeared to be a full backpack. It was lying right at the foot of a glowering cop. Someone braver than me darted forward and seized it, swinging it up and withdrawing swiftly into the crowd on our side of the police line. I could see by the way the pack swung that it was heavy.
I ended up with that backpack along with an armload of black clothing. There was something in the pack, that was for sure. Something heavy and solid.
The crowd along the police line was outnumbered; the best I could do for my comrades was to get that stuff out of there. I stepped back from the standoff and made my way south along 12th Street. I passed the mouth of an alley, also strewn with clothing.
The straps of the backpack were cutting into my shoulders. I needed to go somewhere private so I could open it up and take a look. It wouldn’t do to open it in the middle of a crowded street in full view of police officers and National Guardsmen without any idea what might be inside. I walked down to Franklin Square and found a coffee shop that was open. A dozen fresh-faced college protesters were waiting in line for the bathroom. I waited for fifteen minutes, but the line hardly moved.
Eventually, I gave up and started looking for another establishment. Most of the other places were closed; some of them had lost their windows to the hammers of the black bloc. The streets in this part of DC had been desolate earlier in the day, but now they were filling up with protesters, journalists, curious locals, and the occasional Trump supporter.
I walked a block west to McPherson Square. There was some protest infrastructure there, including a tent and Food Not Bombs preparing to serve a meal, but no privacy I could take advantage of to inspect my cargo.
The longer I carried the backpack, the heavier it got, and the more ominous its weight became. What was inside it? What if I was walking around Washington, DC with a bomb on my back? I was starting to fear that I was a character in a story by William S. Burroughs.
Looking back on that scene from the vantage point of 2021, four years later, it seems like a heavy-handed allegory. The backpack was Pandora’s box, containing all the trials and tribulations of the dawning Trump era. Its weight signified all the unthinkable things that would soon become normalized—travel bans on entire countries, fascists shooting people at demonstrations. It held the grief of all the children lost inside the detention system, separated from their parents by Border Patrol. It held the corpses of the 400,000 people who died of COVID-19 during Trump’s administration.
And it held the weight of our responsibility—of our capacity to respond to these tragedies. It wasn’t until I got home that night after a full day of further adventures and narrow escapes that I was finally able to set the backpack down and look inside it. I pulled the zipper open, revealing a red metal canister—a fire extinguisher. The serial numbers had been scraped off the labels so that it, too, might participate in the anonymous collective force of the black bloc. At the bottom of Pandora’s box, hope—in the form of the actions that we can take and the courage necessary to rise to the occasion.
To whoever chose to arrive thus equipped at the departure point for the J20 black blo—thank you. Your secret is safe with me.
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