Post 80 - May 30, 2020
Day 80…
In 1773, in an effort to bail out the East India Company, the British Parliament passed a bill called the Tea Act. The Act granted the East India Company the right to be the sole importer of tea to the colonies in North America. The East India Company was one of the major corporations in England at that time and a key driver of the entire British economy and it was in danger of going under.
England had amassed a crippling amount of national debt coming out of the French and Indian War a decade before and was using the colonies as an exploitable source of revenue to try and remedy that. Two years after the war ended, Parliament had passed the Stamp Act which taxed all paper goods sold in the colonies as a way to raise money.
The colonists protested, arguing that only their own representative governments had the right to levy taxes on them. The British countered that the war had directly benefited the colonies and, as a result, the colonists were being rightfully taxed to help pay for it.
The colonies had no representation in Parliament. Parliament argued that all British subjects enjoyed virtual representation even though they couldn’t directly vote for their representatives.
Patrick Henry submitted a series of resolutions to the Virginia colony’s local assembly that called upon colonists to resist the Stamp Act. Newspapers throughout all of the colonies then reprinted them for all to read.
In Boston, a group that called themselves the Sons of Liberty incited a mob to march through the streets with an effigy of the local stamp collector that they then destroyed before ransacking the official’s home. He quit.
Similar protests sprung up in towns and cities throughout the colonies and, ultimately, Parliament had no choice but to repeal the act because they couldn’t get anybody to agree to collect the taxes.
By the time the Tea Act came around, another seven years had passed. Another seven years of more kinds of taxation by British Parliament without any representation from the colonies. Protests erupted in many places, the most famous being the one that happened in Massachusetts.
In Boston, a well-organized mob of men, dressed as Native Americans, boarded the East India Company’s ships in Boston Harbor and looted them, throwing the tea into the harbor.
The violent reaction to this tea tax was not just about the tea. It was the inevitable result of an accumulation of a decade or more of injustice at the hands of the British.
We celebrate that action every year as one of the triggers that led to the revolution that created our new country.
Throughout our national history, gay and transgendered people have been forced to live severely compromised lives. There are still laws on the books that discriminate against people for their sexual orientation.
Michael and I are not allowed to donate blood plasma, even though we have the COVID-19 antibodies, because we are gay. This outdated and discriminatory law, not based on any sort of science, dates from the early days of the HIV/AIDS plague when it was wrongly thought that only homosexual men were susceptible to the disease and were the sole transmitters of it.
In the 1950’s and 1960’s in this country, LGBTQ people faced a legal system that was completely stacked against them. It was a criminal offense to be and act as a gay person. Gay people went underground to live their lives.
Bars were one of the few businesses that turned a blind eye to homosexuality. Why? Because there was money to be made.
Those bars and other kinds of establishments where gay people congregated were regularly raided by the police.
The Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, here in New York, was a gay bar that catered to some of the most marginalized, poor members of the LGBTQ community. It was actually owned and run by the mafia.
Early in the morning of June 28, 1969, a spontaneous riot broke out following a police raid. The riots continued for several days and were joined by more and more people.
The Stonewall Inn is now part of the National Park Service. Those riots were the beginning of the movement that allows me to live an open life with my husband in this country fifty years later.
Yesterday, a whole series of sometimes violent protests erupted in cities all around the country in response to the needless death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer in Minneapolis. The protests are continuing today.
The protests are not only about George Floyd.
In the decades since the Civil Rights movement was fought in the 1960’s, the change that that struggle promised, has not come to be. There are certainly successes that can be pointed to, the most obvious being the Presidency of Barack Obama, but despite that, nothing has truly changed for countless millions of African American people.
Michael and I got on our Citi Bikes yesterday and rode downtown to Foley Square to be part of the protest.
Participating in a protest during a global pandemic was not something that we did without thought. We were careful, but despite the possible danger, we felt that we had an obligation to be there.
At 5:00pm, the protest was still peaceful. Most everybody there was wearing a mask. Certainly, there were people there who weren’t.
“I can’t breathe” was an oft repeated chant.
There was a huge police presence, but they were respectful and non-combative. And masked as well.
There were just as many white people in the crowd as people of color.
Michael and I did our best to stay on the edge of the crowds.
“I can’t breathe”
As time went on, the police started separating the group, which ended up fragmenting and going in a few different directions. One group, at the entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge, started confronting the police and gathering tightly together, so Michael and I left them and went to the other group. That group was in front of the NYC Criminal Court.
“I can’t breathe”
While we were there, we saw some people getting arrested. The police started playing recordings telling people to get out of the street and onto the sidewalk.
“I can’t breathe”
The police started moving together in phalanxes. Michael and I left and went home where we then watched the protests around the country get more and more intense.
All of those protests involved people of every color. They were not just African Americans. Not by a long shot. Newscasters on several stations took great pains to point that out.
These protests started in direct response to the death of George Floyd but what happened last night is about so much more than that.
“A riot is the language of the unheard.” So said Dr. Martin Luther King. He continued by asking, “What is it that America has failed to hear?”
“I can’t breathe”
The President is talking about sending out the military to deal with the rioting. He is not listening.
“I can’t breathe”
We sadly don’t have a leader like Dr. King to guide us through this with intelligence and reason and compassion. Or a Nelson Mandela.
“I can’t breathe”
We need to listen to why these riots are happening not just send out troops to quash them and put the fires out. The anger won’t go away, because the anger has been burning for decades.Centuries.
Over our entire history, it seems that the only way that change has happened has been through violent protest. Our country was founded on violent protest.
“I can’t breathe”
Change will come. If this isn’t the moment that we will look back and point to as when that change came, then the next one will be.
“I can’t breathe”
Change WILL come. The only question is, will it come out of violence or out of discussion and education.
“I can’t breathe”
We need to listen.