Critical Mass Protests the RNC (8-29-04) 

By Ian Granick 

As Republican delegates double checked their matching luggage sets, as the NYPD converted a bus depot into a prison, as Schwarzenegger and McCain practiced sounding honest while telling shamelessly bold-faced lies and engaging in a staggering campaign of historical revisionism, and as Dick Cheney practiced speaking for more then 3 minutes without succumbing to seizures of maniacal laughter and hand wringing (which you just know happens to him at home at regular intervals), I went on my first Manhattan Critical Mass.  

I had done the ride once before, in Brooklyn, so I sorta knew what to expect: that people would be friendly, that the 7 p.m. pedal-off time was a more like a vague suggestion then anything that was really going to happen and that the ride had no actual leader or planned route.  Rather, the group would roll spontaneously in the direction that the people in the front steered, and that this vanguard would rotate.  

What I was not prepared for was the sheer volume of people in attendance. Estimates have varied.  The “official police count” is 5,000, most likely a conservative number, others say 10,000, probably a bit inflated.  I will say somewhere between 6,000-8,000 riders turned out -- a vast sea of bicycles wrapping around Union Square.  You could see every imaginable shape and type of bike, not to mention roller bladders and skate boarders. And of course, being that it was Union Square on a gorgeous Friday evening, there was also a full battalion of bullhorn-bearing speak-out-ers, alternative press distributors, political button and t-shirt pushers, and hordes of feral, unwashed, natty-haired, pierced and painted, mehndied  and stenciled boys (and girls) many of whom I feel fairly confident that with a friendly offer of a veggie burger or a lemon-grass-wheat-germ smoothie, could be lured back to my apartment where they would willingly engage in an entire 3-ring circus of decidedly non-vegan, naked, full-body contact sports. You know, for the revolution and all… 

At around 7:15 p.m., to a large cry of whooping and cheering, the ride began.  At the front was a cadre of uniformed police on motorcycles and behind them a squad of bike cops. I remember thinking that it was a bit ironic that the police seemed to be leading the Critical Mass and I wondered how long it would be before the “real leaders” just turned a corner and took the crowd away from the police. It took about 20 more minutes before enough of the riders had snaked their way out of Union Square that I was finally on the go, and there were plenty of riders behind me.  

The ride took off downtown along Fifth Avenue. I read somewhere that at one point it was 45 blocks long. We chanted, we screamed, we yelled. We passed thousands of pedestrians who had lined up all along the way to see the spectacle. The pedestrians cheered and yelled. Traffic was stopped entirely. And the police presence was vast. They were everywhere. At first I was concerned that they would just start arresting people, which is what they had threatened to do. However, this did not happen. For most of the ride, they actually held back. They were helpful, they stopped the traffic (not that they had a choice) and they generally stayed out of the way. It was cool. 

Somewhere along the way, we turned westward, got to Sixth Ave. and headed uptown. 

I will just say that when I am on these rides, I usually have no idea where the hell I am. I am just sort of following blindly, trying not to crash into other riders as a result of either my lack of balance or their stupidity. One young woman all but broadsided me as she attempted to navigate the crowd and talk on her cell phone. The experience has led me to the firm belief that bikes and cell phones do not mix.  At least use an earpiece.  

I understand that by 8 p.m. the mob was split in two. Some say it was the police who split us by throwing up a blockade.  I cannot for the life of me fathom why they would have done this. The two groups, the two huge groups (3,000-4,000 riders in each group), just blocked off that much more traffic. One group wound up on Madison, heading north. The group I was in headed up through Chelsea on Eighth Avenue.  I knew I was in Chelsea because I started seeing really cute guys cheering us on. We eventually got to Central Park, did three loops around Columbus Circle and headed back down Broadway toward Time Square.  

It was a scene of festive madness and I think it set a particular tone of angry, defiant, cheerfulness that we were to experience during the rest of the week-long “RNC Rebellion.”  

As for me, the energy and the excitement that I felt during the protest lasted for about an hour. That is sort of my attention span for marches and rallies. When I am with people and feel connected, I can go longer.  But I was not. I went on the ride alone.  This was a mistake.  Here I was, in the middle of 6,000 to 8,000 riders feeling completely isolated.  I found myself wondering what I was going to do after the ride.  Who was I going to hang out with?  Where was I going to have diner?  I knew that I knew others on the ride, but I had not yet seen any of them.  It was at this point that I decided to find my friend (and occasional F&F group leader) Richard Brause.  For an hour I surged ahead, scanning the crowd, making my way to the front. I finally found him at about 9:20 p.m. just as we turned onto Second Avenue.  

The very first thing I said to him was “Are we having dinner after this?”  Then, in the space of time it took to move two blocks, we decided to leave right then and there and go eat.  The crowd was turning off Second Avenue to the right (maybe onto 10th Street). We went straight ahead.  We circled around a sizeable police presence, turned left at 13th street and off to dinner.  

During the meal we debriefed about the ride and the police and were both very pleased that things had gone off without a hitch.  It was not until much later, when I got home and read the on-line play-by-play that I learned that 264 of the people who had made the right turn had been arrested, including some people I know very well. Likely, it was just dumb luck (and hunger) that kept me from being one of them. 

So here is what I have learned on the ride and throughout the week that followed. Bike riding is an incredibly hopeful activity. It allows for movement across considerable distances while still allowing people to have semi-intimate human contact.  Protesting on bikes is huge fun both for the riders and the spectators. I would do it again in a heartbeat. 

I also learned that the cops can arrest you for anything. Their actions do not have to be legal, and yours do not have to be illegal for you to wind up in lock-down. Much of what I witnessed this week seriously challenged my long-held belief that we live in a free society. I mean, sure, we are free to be upwardly mobile. We are free to invest time, energy and capital into the system. We have broad latitude within a particular paradigm of options. However, if you choose to step out of that prescribed paradigm, to shout when you are supposed to be quiet, to stand your ground when you are told to move, to be insolent in the face of authority, then you will quickly find your freedoms diminished.   

Is it legal to arrest you for exercising your constitutional rights?  Well, as it turns out, it is not illegal.  The cops will not be punished or jailed.  The city will have to pay some fines for failing to provide due process and keeping people in jail for more then 24 hours, but I am not sure the system will punish itself too harshly for using police authority as a way of getting possible “trouble-makers” temporarily off of the streets. After all, isn’t that what police are for? 

However, I remain incredibly hopeful.  I have seen that people can indeed make a difference.  That creativity can change people’s lives and outlooks. That freedom of speech is a right but, like voting, it is also a responsibility -- one that we must engage in as often as possible. That being arrested does not make you a criminal, and could actually make you a hero. That we can make demands on the system and require that it bend to our perspective or shatter trying. And that if the system shatters, we can rebuild it in a more thoughtful fashion. That we are limited only by our imaginations and our courage.  

Whose streets…?