A week ago, a man named George Floyd was murdered a thousand miles away by a Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin. Floyd’s death has been the spark that has lit this tinderbox of a country on fire. The flames dance high and bright, and they are fueled by the continual disregard that this nation holds for Black life and the lives of anyone who dares defend it.
Schenectady came out to protest, just like everyone else in America did, but there were no riots here, the way there were in neighboring Albany, where businesses and banks up and down Central Ave were broken into and looted a day before.
That didn’t stop Schenectady businesses from boarding up their windows in anticipation of a riot, all up and down State Street, a main thoroughfare in the city. That didn’t stop local big box stores from closing at 5 PM yesterday and the day before. That didn’t stop a local CBD store from displaying in their window a large sign that said “BLACK-OWNED BUSINESS,” in anticipation of looting and violence.
The reason why Schenectady never burned is because people — the protestors — kept things calm. When the protestors asked the members of the Schenectady Police Department (SPD) to take a knee, to show their solidarity with them, to show their reverence and their respect for Black life, the police knelt.
I could give Police Chief Eric Clifford and the Schenectady Police Department (SPD) their kudos for being willing to work with the community, for showing a humility that their Albany counterparts could not or would not display. Other people have done a better job of praising or tearing down this department; Facebook is rife with armchair analysis of how well or badly Clifford’s cops did in this case.
I will not add to it. I will not wax poetic about a police department doing what it should be doing all along. I will not praise public servants for serving the people, or merely pledging to serve the people — as they have done in this case. (Remember: a promise is only as good as its follow-through.)
I think all praise, what praise there is to give, falls firmly on the young people who organized this protest, and any excessive analysis of the police response is to take attention away from Brianna Johnson, Mikayla Foster, Jamaica Miles, and all the other organizers with All of Us, the Black-led organization that came together in order to organize this rally, in order to make sure that these voices, so often ignored, were heard.
They were the ones who had the strength of character to stand up to the police force that has wielded incredible power over the short time they’ve been on this planet. They are the ones who deserve praise, not SPD.
Too much of the narrative that has been allowed to form about Schenectady’s protest has centered on the coming-together, not the always-apart. Because there’s more to this story than Chief Clifford kneeling; more to it than kumbaya and togetherness and feeling-fueled promises made and maybe (hopefully) kept. I saw dialogue, I saw conversation, I saw connections between members of the police force and the community being formed, but what I also saw was confrontation.
I saw a multiracial collective of Schenectadians come up against the raw power of the state.
I saw youth brandish their homemade #BLM signs and scream “no justice, no peace” at the police, standing feet away from them behind a barricade, decked out in riot gear. I saw Black kids laugh amongst each other in studied defiance while snipers stood on the roof of the police station, intimidating in their lethal silence. I saw people hanging out of car windows singing songs, celebrating together their joy in defying the powers that have defined their lives up until now. I saw pools of resistance being formed, under the very noses of the carceral state.
Most of all, I saw confrontation in what happened a few hours after the dialogue between community leaders and Chief Clifford occurred.
Hours after this video was taken, Mayor Gary McCarthy issued a State of Emergency, implementing a 7 PM curfew in Schenectady, to extend until June 5th, or until everyone calmed down.
The move was seen — rightfully — as a slap in the face to protestors, who had worked extremely hard to keep the peace. All of Us issued a scathing statement, decrying empty gestures and promises.
This was a direct assault on our bodies. This was [Mayor McCarthy] exerting his power over our bodies. This is another act of systemic racism against our people.
The order — stupidly, thoughtlessly given — was soon rescinded.
Chief Clifford’s efforts to establish trust were a bandaid on what is a gaping wound of generations of systemic disenfranchisement and economic and racial oppression and even that was ripped away within hours.
Whether that bandaid should have been applied at all — I’ll leave for the community to decide.
But what I do know, and now know even more after seeing what I saw on Sunday, is this wound will not be healed by the powers that control the city. The oppressive, carceral state will not repair what it has broken.
That work? It will only be done by the people of Schenectady.