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Last weekend was the Walk for Life in downtown San Francisco. Every year thousands of churchmembers, all dressed in black, get bussed in from various parts of California to make a statement in this den of sin known as the Bay Area. And every year we show up to greet them.

Whatever anyone says about the issues, whatever anyone says about organizing and tactics and strategy, there is one thing that will always be true: we are way better dancers than they are.

The few hundred folks that came out to the counterprotest were certainly colorful. We repped fun street theater, witty songs sung by trannies, passionate speeches, creative slogans, bigger banners, not to mention lotsa anger and smiles. We were funny. Amidst all the screaming and laughing, I looked out into the street to see the thousands of anti-choicers. I could have thought of all the women left without options, all the women who are killed because of the “pro life” agenda. I didn’t. Instead, I thought, “DAMN, THESE FOOLS ARE BOOORING.” They Plodded along in silence, no chanting, no singing, no nothing. All wore plain black t-shirts. All had matching signs. All were directed by the march organizers, who made sure no one stepped out of line.

But of course, that’s the point. While us queers and freaks were out galavanting around, they maintained what they perceived as their dignity and civility. And while we were clearly having more fun, I tried to be a little bit more thoughtful about their tactics.

I always have a complicated relationship to the celebratory aspect of our demonstrations. I love puppets, creative slogans, autonomous actions etc. Our demonstrations are celebrations of life, of love, of reclaiming space. But at what point does all that become trivializing? Back in the day demonstrations were often taken seriously because they represented a real threat. They screamed “HEY! WE’RE PISSED! AND WE’RE ORGANIZED!” Mass mobilizations were sometimes effective because power holders knew that if they ignored the demo, there would be rioting or worse later. Nowadays when we take to the streets, we yell and scream and chant and then….go home and watch TV. Of course we are ignored.

I looked out at the anti-choicers, all wearing black, silent, with consistent messaging, and I imagined our side being organized enough to have people show up to a mass mobilization dressed the same. The idea of uniforms in a mass demonstration is enough to make any anti-authoritarian cringe. But entertain the idea for just a second. If you’re a power-holder, would you feel more threatened by 300,000 disorganized people plodding around in circles, or by 300,000 people all dressed alike, shouting with one voice? I know which one would freak me out more. Just sayin’. The precedent is already there, from black blocs to unions. When most unions mobilize, they wear union shirts and have the same signs. They’re organized. But they’re often small. Imagine if it was hundreds of thousands of people. There’s an anti-authoritarian precedent for that too - just look at the Global Justice demonstrations against the IMF, WTO, and World Bank, in Asia from Korea to Japan. I dunno, just a thought.

Despite the uniformity of the Walk for Life, the protestors actually captured a wide variety of nuance in their beliefs - nuance that ‘our side’ often fails to recognize. A whole lot of our signs were simply anti-religious, as if that would somehow have any effect on people other than reinforce their presently held ideas. We acted like everyone in the Walk for Life was some ultra-right fundamentalist fascist. But what about the otherwise-progressive Latino communities that showed up because of their grounding in Catholocism? What about the people with signs like “No War, No Death Penalty, No Abortion”? How do we confront and account for those? We didn’t. We dehumanize them just as much as they dehumanize us. I didn’t know how to respond to these folks:

…at least not in a way that that was conducive to a good slogan.

I went to the counterprotest with the intention of having fun, pissing some anti-choicers off, and networking. To those ends, I think it was a success. But I left realizing that we actually don’t have many resources on counter-demonstrations: what their purpose is, how to strategize and plan them, what tactics make sense, etc. By the end of the day folks from the Ruckus Society were talking about putting together a good counter-demo manual. I think its something the movement needs right now.

But for now, I’ll just chuckle that I got to dress flamboyantly and shout my head off behind a banner that said “do you really want US to have kids?”

Original post by joshrussell and reposted by Radical Blogs