Redefining American Revolution, Part Two
“I had that moment where you see yourself in the history book.”
Before Stand Speak Listen had a name, it had leaders. Ebony and Skai began to reach for allies within arm’s reach as they plotted a mid-season reboot of Bellingham’s Black Lives Matter movement. Just days after that bleak afternoon in June, a small cluster of close friends and neighbors squeezed into the guest bedroom of someone’s apartment. They began to lay the groundwork for the Stand Speak Listen Rhythmic Protest — date set for July 4th, 2020.
June passed in shitty memes and Tik Tok videos of the nationwide police riot. Coronavirus was strangling thousands of us by the day and it was clear that every person who could make it stop simply did not give a shit. The spotlights on American police could not be brighter — and still Atlanta PD had murdered Rayshard Brooks. American Police were beyond reform.
In Minneapolis, George Floyd’s murderers had been charged, but the nation had seen too many killer cops go free to let up the pressure now. And even if these four men were delivered the severest sentence possible, Ahmaud Arbery still deserved justice. Breonna Taylor still deserved justice. Elijah McClain still deserved justice. Countless others still deserved justice. And in this moment, conditions aligned in a way that the United States of America hadn’t seen in half a century: justice was being demanded from city, state, and federal governments all at once.
Bellingham’s scrappy new team would demand justice from their city. Despite its veneer of progressive West Coast weed culture, Bellingham was failing in all the same ways as the Red State towns that it loved to deride. Decades of gentrification and a Whole Foods reusable bag of willful ignorance have exacerbated the city’s chasmic wealth inequality. Homelessness is rising in pace with Western Washington University’s freshman enrollment. Mental health and substance abuse resources had been long inadequate, and only this year are they kinda, sorta available. To the founders of Stand Speak Listen, Bellingham’s civic priorities all but ignored the city’s most vulnerable residents — many of whom are Black or Indigenous — in favor of white, wealthy interests.
Now was a moment for the movement to address the white Washingtonians that had for too long time reaped the benefits of white privilege without using it for justice. Skai and Ebony all all other Black, Indigenous, and POC citizens could call out the racism and discrimination they faced in this city by the same people who thought themselves progressive, who thought they were already doing enough.
Protest was in order.
Ideas began big: shut down the entirety of downtown, crowd out the streets, force the city — and all its 82% white population — to listen. Permits were sought, but denied, citing the statewide shut down and social distancing measures. Then the goal became a march, a mile-long line of Bellinghamers calling for change and justice. But every other city had marched, had shut down city hall, had wrested open the eyes of the public. Skai and Ebony knew Bellingham was different, deserved a different kind of protest. And what, after all, was their reason for broadcasting this giant “fuck you, pay me” to every color-blind-all-lives-matter-moderate American Voter on their precious Fourth of July?
This year, Skai and Ebony could define what independence really meant to Black Americans in the 21st Century. They could expose the criminal irony of celebrating freedom in a time when Black Americans are not really free.
Their vision was pared down to a single stage. Raised up, full lighting rig, big sound system. The works. One platform to uplift Black voices and demand justice in a language that the city already spoke. Stand Speak Listen’s protest would use art in lieu of a megaphone — and they would do it with or without the city’s permission. July 4th was two weeks away.
