This article was originally published in the December 1999 issue of UltraViolet, the newsletter of LAGAI - Queer Insurrection (more recent issues are online at www.lagai.org).

On Monday, November 29, I watched the news in Seattle with my friends. After fairly extensive coverage of the day’s environmental demonstration and the subsequent trashing of a downtown McDonalds, the announcers reminded people that the planned blockade of the World Trade Organization’s opening ceremonies would make it very difficult to get in or out of downtown the next morning. Police, protesters and journalists were gearing up, the reporter informed us, for “the Battle of Seattle.” We groaned, and then laughed at the melodramatic moniker.

By 9:00 a.m. on Tuesday, I wasn’t laughing any more. The police had come armed for battle, differently than even October 6 or the post-Rodney King martial law here in San Francisco.

The action had been meticulously and ingeniously organized by the Direct Action Network, self-described as “a network of local grassroots organizations and street theater groups across the Western United States and Canada.” The entire area between the Pike Place Market and the edge of Capitol Hill was divided into 13 “wedges”, with an affinity group or cluster taking responsibility for each section. This grid encompassed the Convention Center where meetings were to take place, the Paramount Theatre which would host the opening ceremonies, and the various hotels where delegates were staying.

The morning began with two processions, made extremely dramatic and colorful by hundreds of puppets, banners, flags, stars, butterflies, props that had to be wheeled on wagons, props that took twelve people strung together to carry, sea turtle costumes, and the omnipresent AFL/CIO official “Protest of the Century” bright yellow rain ponchos. The procession I was in started at Seattle Central Community College at Broadway and Pine; the other left from Victor Steinbreuck Park, near 1st and Pike. We left SCCC about 7:30 a.m. and marched together down Pine Street, across the Boren Street overpass, which divides Capitol Hill from downtown, about a block from the Paramount. From there, affinity groups began to fan out, taking over intersections.

At that point, the cops were nowhere in sight. By the time they came marching down from the security perimeter which had been set up around the Paramount and the Convention Center, every intersection within about a two-mile radius were completely blocked.

One group erected a tripod of the type used by the forest activists for treesitting. Others had brought lockboxes, bike locks and even dead appliances to make barricades. Intense activists locked arms through concrete tubes to make lock-downs, a word I had only heard before from the mouths of jail guards, but with which I would become very familiar by the end of the day. More traditional affinity groups used only their bodies and mobile props to block the relatively small number of cars and buses who had thought they’d be able to beat the action downtown. At one point tactical people came through and asked us to let some school buses through, which we did (though some people disagreed with that decision). Someone had had rolls of yellow “Unseen Crime” (as opposed to Crime Scene) tape made up, and people wove big webs of it around intersections.

Some of the “black-clad anarchists” about whom so much would be heard later were busy turning over dumpsters and news boxes in the street. I wasn’t so keen on that, but I did spot some sawhorses with “Street Closed” signs and orange cones lying by the side of a road, and I couldn’t just leave them there. Some guys came out and helped me set up a little detour with them.

The first cops to arrive were pretty mellow. They set up a line opposite the blockaders but made no effort to prevent anyone from locking down or doing anything else. Their shields were not pulled across their faces, the extra-long riot sticks which had been approved for this set of protests were pointing down at the ground. Since my efforts to assemble a queer affinity group had been unsuccessful, I decided to be an action slut, bopping from one section of the blockade to another to see who was doing what and hoping to manage to end up wherever the coolest action was.

As it got closer to 9:00 a.m. delegates started coming out of the hotels, each of which was surrounded by hordes of protesters, and attempting to make their way toward the Paramount. Demonstrators thronged them, some arguing, some speechifying, some verbally abusing, some offering, “Join us.” I saw a crowd of white activists pursuing a group of African and Asian delegates, who looked upset and a little scared. I tried to say that people should let them alone, with no effect. At another corner, I saw a very tall white man surrounded by a group of protesters. I didn’t hear what they said to him, but I heard his response: “Well I was elected, and you weren’t.” On television that night, we saw a delegate (another white man, as the vast majority of them were) pull a handgun on the group that was impeding him.

Though I had arrived in Seattle on Saturday thinking I would risk arrest, by Sunday I had concluded that I didn’t have time, since I suspected – correctly as it turned out – that an arrest in this context would not be a simple in-and-out affair. But as it became evident that no arrests were imminent, I got bolder, and was considering joining the die-in in front of the Sheraton (one of the hotels housing the largest group of delegates) when a squad of horse cops trotted up. They urged their horses right to the edge of where the protesters were lying in the street. The commander said something to his men (I didn’t see any women). He seemed to look right at me, and something in his face made me get out my notebook and write down the number on his helmet, 719. His men moved their horses a step or two closer. I felt an overwhelming panic, and thought, “They’re not kidding. They’re going to trample people.” I took a few steps toward the sidewalk, then felt guilty and moved back toward the blockaders.

Subhead: Tips for the Millennium: If you’re going to get teargassed, carry a wet handkerchief and don’t wear mascara

As it turned out, no one was trampled by a horse during the two days of chaos, but I was right: they weren’t kidding. A few minutes later, when I had just gotten to the intersection of Sixth and University, I heard someone yell, “Gas.” I heard what sounded like firecrackers, looked up and saw a white cloud coming out of this armored truck thing (I called it a tank, but someone corrected me). I was pretty much on the edge of the crowd, and I turned around, so I wasn’t too affected by the tear gas. People started to scramble out of the way, but many more stayed where they were. Some people were locked down in front. I saw cops spraying chemicals out of things that looked like fire extinguishers over and over directly in the faces of the people who were locked down. I heard another series of shots, which sounded different. Someone said something about rubber bullets; I looked up and saw something that looked like a miniature 8-ball bounce off the curb.

I saw people throwing the used tear gas canisters, which I’m told are very hot and dangerous to touch without gloves, along with some sticks, orange rubber cones and at least a couple bottles at the cops, over the heads of other demonstrators and over the people who were locked down in the street. I was very upset by this and went to yell at them, “If you want to do that, go up front and do it. The people lying down have already been maced.” They guy I was talking to said something that sounded very much like, “Fuck you.”

I went running off to 8th & Seneca to tell the people there what had happened down the hill. I arrived there just in time to get gassed again. I caught more than a whiff of it that time, and went running into the Plymouth Catholic Church, used their bathroom and put a couple wet paper towels in my pocket. I remember peeking into the chapel, where Diverse Women for Diversity, an international network of women for biodiversity as well as cultural, ethical and political diversity (hence the name, with its oddly redundant sound), was having a teach-in, and thinking maybe I should just hang out with them for a while. Of course, being an action junkie, that wasn’t a real possibility.

Oddly, after a while I stopped being very scared. It started to seem normal, walking from blockade to blockade, listening for shots and scanning the horizon for clouds of smoke and gas. A little before noon, it stopped raining and the sun came out, creating some spectacular rainbows and a very festive atmosphere to greet the arrival downtown of the march from the People’s Assembly, which had a focus on Mumia Abu-Jamal. The People’s Assembly, incidentally, was a two-day series of educational and strategy meetings being held at the Filipino Cultural Center in South Seattle. It sounded really exciting, and one of my big regrets of the week was that the inaccessible location (barely reachable by bus) made it impossible for me to attend any of the sessions. Interestingly, the People’s Assembly feeder to the large labor march coming from Seattle Center was the only march scheduled for that day which was denied a permit (the marches to the blockade, needless to say, had not applied for permits).

I hung out with some great women from Dyke Community Activists, whom I’d met briefly on Sunday. We compared notes from the morning, and wandered around, looking at the groups of marchers and waiting for the big march to arrive. By the time it did, there was a feeling that things had calmed down and would be peaceful from now on. After all, the WTO had already announced, finally, that the opening ceremonies would be cancelled for that day, much to the chagrin of the 30% of delegates who had managed to get to the Convention Center, where they remained sequestered with no access to information, food or even coffee (shame on you, Seattle).

The march, which had begun with a rally featuring Sweet Honey and “our” Michael Moore [as opposed to the director of the WTO]), was even huger than predicted, many estimating it at 70,000. I took pictures of banners from Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, the Campaign for Environmental Justice, groups from Korea, South America and South Dakota. Finally the big rainbow flag I’d been waiting for showed up, and I joined in with them. The queer contingent had gotten split up by then, as tends to happen with big marches, but Christine from Dyke Action tells me it was about 30-40 strong, including queers from Bellingham, WA, Victoria, B.C., the Ingersoll Gender Center, OutFront Labor Coalition (Seattle Pride at Work), Dyke Action and Dyke Community Activists. Typically, Lesbian Avengers stole the show by going topless to protest the effects of Bovine Growth Hormones, a brave action given the weather. They made a big impression on Bob from Teamsters Local 174 (a friend of a friend of mine), who said, “I got great pictures, from the naked chicks to the guys jumping over dumpsters.”

I strayed from the queer contingent to say hi to a friend, and ended up marching with him and a group of Teamsters for a little while. Approaching the intersection of 4th and Pine, the Sheet Metal Workers, who were in front of us, suddenly veered off course and headed down 4th. We understood that they were just trying to take a shortcut to meet up with the rest of the march near the Convention Center. A guy from the College of Marin, who was videotaping them, told me later that they decided to take that detour because they saw the riot cops aiming their tear gas guns at the blockaders and wanted to help out. What ensued was a tense standoff of about 5,000 people with lines of masked and shielded cops. I dragged my lawyer friends to the front to try to negotiate with the cops to let us through. I was surprised that there didn’t appear to be a commander or any cop with the authority, or desire, to negotiate or resolve the situation at all. They just pointed their riot sticks and tear gas guns at the crowd. Steve from Local 174 said, “Sit down,” which seemed like a good idea and many of us did. After 20 minutes or so, most people gave up and went back around to find the rest of the march. Soon after that, when it was back to just the “bad protesters,” the cops let fly with more tear gas and rubber bullets.

At 3:30 or so, I concluded that things were getting unproductive. People were attempting to blockade vans leaving the convention area, which seemed silly. I suggested to one group that we wanted people to leave; why not let them. As with nearly everything I said to a blockader that week, my question went unanswered. Because, seemed to be the reason. People were lighting fires in dumpsters, the blockades were getting much smaller, and the cops were getting freer and fiercer with their tear gas. I decided it was time for me, at least, to get warm and fed, and walked to the Wild Rose, the only lesbian bar in Seattle, on the edge of Capitol Hill.

The bar was jumping at 4:30 on Tuesday afternoon. Nearly every table was full, women were playing pool, and the TV was broadcasting the scene from downtown. I munched nachos, drank a beer, and watched things get scarier on the small screen. The cops were driving groups of activists out of downtown with sticks flying and the barrages of tear gas. Activists were running, some throwing things, some covering their heads with their arms like shots I’ve seen from Palestine and Kosova. I couldn’t believe this was happening just a few blocks away, in the area I had just left. Things in the bar seemed so normal. Presumably, if I had stayed just a half hour later, I would have ended up right in the middle of the war zone, because police were pushing the demonstrators to Capitol Hill, where many were injured and some stores were looted. As it was, I simply found my way onto an errant 43 bus and went back to my friends’ peaceful U District sanctum.

Tuesday night, the mayor asked the governor to send in the National Guard to enforce a 7:00 p.m.-7:00 a.m. curfew in downtown and Capitol Hill. The mayor, Paul Schell, incidentally a good friend of the people I was staying with, went on TV to defend himself for not calling out the Guard sooner. He said people in his administration had protested during the Vietnam War (a carefully worded statement which was nonetheless misreported as saying he had protested himself), and he wanted to make it possible for people to express their dissent. Obviously, he didn’t want it that badly.

Partly because of the curfew, and partly because I was exhausted, I arrived about 8:30 at Wednesday’s action, which was called for 7:00. As I had predicted, the order of the day was arrest, arrest, arrest. The first group had already been arrested about 4 blocks from where they started marching, when the “No Protest Zone” established sometime the day before was summarily expanded. The zone kept being expanded on Wednesday, though the protests were getting smaller and nonviolence was pretty strictly observed. The state legislature jumped to assist the effort to “arrest all the protesters” (a direct quote in the Seattle Weekly attributed to a disbelieving cop talking to his supervisor) by making it a crime for a civilian to possess a gas mask in Seattle.

I had planned to spend most of Wednesday at a teach-in called “Women, Sovereignty/Democracy and Development” presented by the Alliance for Democracy and Diverse Women for Diversity. It took me a while to get there, because there were mass arrests happening, in which some of my friends were involved, and Clinton was also speaking at noon that day, so there were even more police blockades than the day before. When I got to the teach-in, I got the impression that the Women Say No to the WTO march and rally scheduled for noon had been cancelled, because the police had pulled all permits for that day. Each speaker, all women of color, most from Africa, Asia or Latin America, ended her comments by calling for the march to go forward. “Women are very invisible in the WTO,” said Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, of the Indigenous Network for Policy Research and Education in the Philippines. “The cancellation of our rally should be hotly protested.¼As women we should go into the streets today and tell them we do not agree with the policies of the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO.” Marta Ojeda, who led a 1994 strike against Sony in the Mexican maquiladoras, concurred. “Yesterday’s demonstration was the most magnificent demonstration I ever saw in my life.¼We have to show them we are here and we are totally opposed to their policies and we are ready to fight back for ourselves and our children.”

The pastor of the United Methodist Church and other organizers of the Women’s Day events, arrived to announce that they had negotiated with the police that the march could go forward if we went single file and were “completely non-threatening.” They asked that we remain silent and “prayerful.” Though I and many others felt it was wrong to accept the division between good and bad protesters, or the concept that it was protesters who had been “threatening,” we wanted to make it possible for women who could not or did not want to risk arrest or injury to participate. Making a virtue out of necessity, a Tanzanian woman suggested that women cover their mouths with tape or scarves to symbolize that we were being gagged. The result was a powerful human chain over 1000 strong of women and men, across from the hotel where Clinton was addressing the delegates. The lead banner declared, “There Is No Economic Justice without Gender Justice!”

Where Fashion Met Fascism

One of the interesting dynamics was that police and public officials openly admitted that their decision on how to treat someone was being made principally on looks. In explaining the curfew, on Tuesday night, for instance, Mayor Schell said that it was aimed only at protesters, not shoppers or workers. Obviously, the cops were not as good at telling the difference as they imagined they would be.

I experienced this first-hand a number of times during the week, especially on Wednesday. I had worn the two dyke t-shirts I’d brought (Dykes from Hell, natch, and Queers Against Slimy Bosses) on Monday and Tuesday, so by Wednesday I was forced to dress like a “regular” person, though as I dressed I noticed my clothes were overwhelmingly black and hoped I wouldn’t be mistaken for a “black-clad anarchist” (which I literally was). I had also forgotten my sweater, to which my “Mean Corporations Suck” button was affixed, at home, much to my chagrin as it was the coldest day yet. That’s how I came to be virtually alone on the street when Clinton’s motorcade drove through. Unfortunately, I had no banner, no t-shirt (as previously mentioned), no sign, no nothing, so I made a fist and squeaked out, “Fair Trade Not Free Trade” as his limo zipped by me. I’m positive that was entirely responsible for his stance against child labor and in favor of environmental protection (which I’m also positive he’s going to rigorously enforce).

Later that day, after detouring by the Steelworker rally at the harbor, I was trying to get back to the women’s teach-in when I encountered a march which had split off from the Steelworkers (because, basically, it was important but boring). They were going my way, so I thought I’d tag along with them for a while, and that led to my worst tear-gas encounter. Using that armored car, the cops unleashed canister after canister of the gas which had a higher pepper content than what they had been mostly using on Tuesday. I doubled over, telling myself, “You can breathe, you can make it,” splashed water on my face (I had foolishly forgotten to bring any paper towels) walked a few feet, ducked into a doorway, which did nothing for me. A young man with a skateboard ran up and asked if he could share my water. I helped him douse his bandana with water, then moved, gagging, around the corner, only to find that that street was clogged with the stuff also. A number of us headed for Kinkos, where the manager was frantically locking the doors to keep us out. Fortunately, the people in Seattle’s Best Coffee (which unfortunately makes some of the worst coffee in Seattle) were much more compassionate, rushing to give people warm wet paper towels and the keys to the bathroom.

When the burning in my face had subsided (though I didn’t stop feeling feverish for six hours or so), I ventured back out to continue my journey to the United Method Church. In a block or so, I ran into a police blockade that hadn’t been there an hour earlier. I begged to be allowed to go through, explaining I was only trying to get to the teach-in about which I was supposed to be writing an article and for which I was already late. Another woman was trying to get there to perform with a music group. The cop kept shaking his head, saying, “Sorry, orders, talk to the governor,” when finally he told the other woman she could go because she “had legitimate business” there. “But I have legitimate business too,” I protested. “What is it again?” he asked. “I’m writing an article about the thing she’s going to perform at.” “So you’re with her?” “Well, yeah,” I hedged. He let me through. We ran into two more blockader cops, talked our way past one, failed to get past the other, but then it turned out that if we were willing to jaywalk (which in Seattle normally carries a life sentence, but since there were no cars in downtown that week, they decided it wasn’t their priority), we could get through on the other side.

Solidarity Forever, and Ever and Ever

While a number of major media people and more independent press people were arrested while trying to do their jobs, and many clueless people, including at least one delegate, were swept up as well, I found it surprisingly easy to avoid arrest. It seemed to me that if you were savvy, wanted not to get arrested, and were not bent on antagonizing cops or damaging property (which happened very little on Wednesday), you were not going to jail. Which was lucky for me, since those who did go to jail endured a variety of horrors, from being shackled hand and foot, to a group of seven women noncooperators being maced in a holding cell, to a woman having her nose broken by a cop stepping on the back of her head, to forcible strip searches to being threatened with rape. Most of those who refused to give names spent 20 hours or more on buses, peeing in cups while calling the media on their cellphones.

The organizers of this action had organized hundreds of legal trainings, as well as direct action trainings, which encouraged everyone to commit to jail solidarity (i.e., refusing to identify themselves or be released unless everyone was being treated equally). Some of my friends who were doing other parts of the training felt that the line was being pushed in a heavy-handed way, making people feel they had no choice but to stay in jail until the bitter end. They tried to make it clear that it is an individual decision and that everyone should do what is best for them. The majority of the 400+ people arrested on Wednesday held firm to the solidarity demands, including demanding that people charged with felonies (most for property damage) be treated the same as those charged with failure to disperse or other minor misdemeanors. This was a noble and impressive, but not very practical, show of unity. Meanwhile, 1,500 outside supporters ringed the jail on Thursday evening, facing down the cops who were ready to use their riot equipment to disperse them, and eventually won the right to remain outside until people were released, which hundreds did through Sunday, despite pouring rain.

Ultimately, due in part to some poor communication between groups of lawyers, negotiations with the city failed to produce a resolution of the charges, and the demonstrators were released on their own recognizance. While some were released as Jane or John WTO (essentially amounting to dismissals), most identified themselves and have court dates scheduled in the upcoming weeks. For information or to find out how you can help with the legal defense, contact the Direct Action Network, can@drizzle.com, (206)632-1656. If you think you might be having residual neurotoxic effects of tear gas, you can get information and record your experience at www.earthfirstjournal.org/n30_teargas.html.

The Whole World Was Really Watching

During the mass arrests in Seattle, people were as usual chanting, “The whole world is watching.” I turned to the person next to me and said, “The amazing thing is, for once, they really are.” There were 4,000 credentialed journalists, and easily another 1,000, like myself, who were there as activists cum journalists for media outlets too rinky-dink to get credentials. You couldn’t move without bumping into someone reporting into a cellphone. The media were so starved for stories, particularly as the official meetings kept failing to do anything, they were doing stories about each other, particularly the up-to-the-minute coverage of web-based media.

Probably more has been written and said about these actions than any other political events in this country since I was conscious. It was our perception from Seattle that the national media were focusing much more on the “violent” protesters, and criticizing the city for not cracking down hard and fast enough, while the local media were actually pretty defensive, even proud, of “their” good protesters and quick to point out that the “small group of troublemakers” was mostly from out of town.

KPFA and other supposedly left media outlets disappointed by accepting the distinction between “anarchists” and “nonviolent protesters,” failing to acknowledge that many of the nonviolent protesters also identify ourselves as anarchists. The mainstream media got much more sympathetic to protesters as their camera people started getting maced and shot at. KPFA also reported erroneous statements by John Crew of the ACLU and others that rubber bullets had never been used in the U.S. against demonstrators before. They were used at the Mumia demonstration in San Francisco just this past October and by Berkeley police in People’s Park in the early ’90s.

Definitely, the issue of the WTO, its role in promoting monolithic, anti-democratic corporate rule, became a bigger part of public discourse than any of us ever would have imagined. To be honest, most of the activists, including myself, had a pretty limited grasp of what the WTO was before November 30. The issue of genetically altered food, which was of primary importance to many of the women’s groups, is being widely discussed for the first time. Forest activists and labor organizations formed a coalition for action that forced the media to give attention to the concept of sustainable jobs, thus challenging the time-honored dichotomy of labor vs. environmentalist (members of the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs carried signs with pictures of the late Judy Bari). Major media openly credited the uprising (the actual word used on CNN) with emboldening the delegates from Africa and the Caribbean to refuse to sign agreements in which they had no input, thus handing Clinton and the WTO leadership a crushing defeat.

Back home, Bay Area activists are figuring out how to capitalize on this tremendous awakening as the WTO regroups in Geneva. “The challenge will be to maintain pressure,” says Riva of the National Lawyers Guild, who was in Seattle with a Global Exchange affinity group. “We need to keep making the point that the WTO is exploitative by nature, and to remedy some of the problems is still inadequate.” A pretty big demonstration against the WTO last Saturday which was called by the International Socialist Organization was respectfully taken over by and turned more militant than the organizers wanted it to be by participants who voted (electoral fever is everywhere) to leave the empty Bank of America building and march to the Gap to protest sweatshops.

In Seattle, the repercussions have been far and wide. While arrestees (those who are still in town) prepare for court, and the lawyers (according to my sources) discipline each other for breaches of process, the police chief has announced his “retirement,” and the mayor and sheriff got into a shoving match at a reception for Nelson Mandela. The mayor has also decided he won’t run again (smarter guy than we thought). A community meeting to discuss the events was so packed, two more have been planned. Therapists are volunteering time to help people cope with post-traumatic stress.

Disgusted by the business community’s cry for everyone to get back to normal by coming downtown and spending like good little capitalist consumers, Dyke Action is singing twisted holiday songs and handing out flyers this Saturday in the retail core to highlight opposition to the WTO and suggest alternative gifts (purchase from local businesses, focus on giving experiences or donating to charity rather than buying meaningless ‘stuff’, etc.). They are also organizing a Feb. 3rd workshop/forum to explore democratic alternatives to the WTO and related national/international structures.