‘Why Do Black People Deserve to Die?’: At the Barricades of New York’s Eric Garner Protest

Evan McMurryDec 4th, 2014, 12:16 pm
 



“Oh, it’s a Ferguson protest.”

That was the exclamation of one passing tourist as she squinted at the mass shouting “no justice, no peace” and “shame on you” to a line of police officers blocking the 49th St. and 6th Ave intersection. The demonstrators were blocks from the 30 Rock Christmas tree lighting ceremony; less than 100 yards away a couple Elmos lounged, annoyed at the interruption; from behind glowed vulgar old Times Square. In the midst of Midtown you could forgive a tourist for missing the point of another big tangle of lights and noise; this also explains why, when the crowd lost patience with the standoff outside 30 Rock, one person wanted to make for Times Sqaure: “Go to where the tourists are! That’s all they care about!”

This was not, however, a Ferguson protest. Hours earlier a grand jury had declined to indict NYPD officer Daniel Pantaleo for the choking death of Eric Garner. After months of long-distance outrage over the death of Michael Brown, the second non-indictment slapped Gotham; there was a last-straw feeling about the protests Wednesday night.

For all that, the demonstrators were restrained. Beneath the chants, up against the barricades, people flung questions at the wall of stone-faced officers: “Why can’t we trust you?” “Why did you become a police officer?” “What are you upholding?” “Why do black people deserve to die?”

The cops couldn’t respond, yet the questions were still not posed rhetorically; the crowd wanted answers, and if an occasional “Fuck the police!” broke out it was because they weren’t getting any. “Our own mayor had to train his own son how to protect himself from you,” one older woman told an officer standing only a few feet away. She didn’t say it as an insult; she was asking why this would possibly be the case in a civilized world. She didn’t get an answer.

Once the tree lighting ceremony concluded, the demonstrations lost their caricature of bourgeois complacency and scattered across the city. The Lincoln Tunnel was shut down; the West Side Highway spidered with people; and for a tense moment beneath Grand Central it looked as though things might get out of control.

“SHUT. DOWN. THE TRAINS” a group of about twenty yelled as they led a march to the subway turnstiles, where they encountered another flank of police. One protester told the crowd to jump the turnstiles; a cop snapped back that anybody who did so would be arrested. Stymied, the group circled pit-style and chanted “WE ARE ALL ERIC GARNER.” The questioning tone of earlier eroded as the protests condensed into a performance of their complaint about the treatment of Garner: African Americans wanted to move, and the NYPD wouldn’t let them.

Eventually they swiped through and vanished into the subways. A phantom tweet said they had reemerged in Penn Station, but when I arrived I found only few police officers milling about, chatting with travelers.

Through it all one line resonated louder than the rest: “I can’t breathe.” Beneath the pall of defeat the Garner decision cast after Ferguson, this refrain acquired a blatant double meaning: it was testimony to what had happened to Garner, but it also described a community wearied by continued injustices that were suffocating in their similarities. “I can’t breathe,” when yelled up against the barricades at 49th and 6th, sounds less like a rallying cry than a resignation that this has happened too much and will happen again, and again.

In this way the passing tourist was right: this was Ferguson protest. From now on, they all will be.

[Image via screengrab]

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This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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