Anyone who has followed my social media for more than a few weeks know that I don’t shy away from having an opinion, nor do I shirk from standing up and making some noise in support of what I think is right. So when the BLM/anti-police brutality protests started in Seattle, I laced up my boots, wrote the number of my bail contact on my arm, and went down to Capital Hill.
That night was not the first time I’d seen the police attack unarmed protesters. It was, however, the first time I’d ever been tear-gassed or shot at. And I discovered – much to my own dismay – that my first instinct is not to run from danger, but to run into it.
(short story shorter: I got my companions out of danger, then went back in, because the cops were using flashbangs as well as tear gas, people needed ear protection, I had a 50-set pack of earplugs, and… Somewhere, my mother is sighing, but also, I think, a little proud.)
ANYway. A little while after that, my boss mentioned that she was attending a training session for basic techniques in militant nonviolent civil protest, sponsored by Valley & Mountain and Washington Poor People’s Campaign: A National Call for Moral Revival. And I thought, “if you’re going to continue to be a chaotic good paladin idiot, you probably need that.”