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An Anti-Racist Action Report
We ("we" meaning Louisville, Central Kentucky, and Columbus Anti-Racist
Action) got together around 6:20 pm [August 7, 1999] in front of Artswatch,
the building where the play Corpus Christi is being performed.
There were about fifteen members of Anti-Racist Action present. There were only two opponents there at the time -- one Catholic, one fundamentalist Christian, both praying the rosary (?!?). A couple of our folks walked down the block to Walgreen's to buy some cheap poster boards. We made a few funny signs with which to annoy the fundamentalists and stood right next to them on the sidewalk so that when their cronies showed up they would have no room to stand. As patrons of Artswatch started showing up to claim their reservations, a car pulled up in front with two loudly homophobic men inside. We videotaped their faces and license plate numbers. They parked nearby and returned to harangue the Artswatch patrons and ARA members with ever-so-inventive taunts of "Faggots!" A few minutes later, some more unorganized homophobes showed up. They all looked like they may have been in town for the free Lynyrd Skynrd concert in downtown Louisville that night (no, I'm not kidding).
We also have the unorganized loudmouth homophobes who are just lounging around on the other side of the street looking red-faced and hateful. ARA is all over the place -- some are standing near or among the organized Christians, some cross the street and stand in front of the unorganized homophobes, others are keeping an eye on the scene from a nearby street corner. At this point the police show up and block off a side street with their cars. They stand around for a long time and try to figure out what's going on. Eventually they move across the street to stand in front of ARA people with signs who are standing in front of the loudmouth homophobes. The police discuss the possibility of separating all the demonstrators into their own areas -- moving ARA away from the loudmouths and over to the Christians, perhaps. Our proposed solution was to have all the anti-gay protesters, organized and unorganized alike, on the opposite side of the street while ARA stood in front of Artswatch. Of course the cops didn't listen to us. It remained this way for about 30-45 minutes. Finally the organized Christian demonstrators packed up and left. The unorganized loudmouths called out "Don't leave! Don't leave!" Then something very interesting happened. A police officer pulled aside one of the larger, louder homophobes and said a few words which we couldn't hear. Then the unorganized homophobes left. Then the police left. And ARA was standing outside of Artswatch alone. It was clear that the police had made some type of deal with the opposition, perhaps something along the lines of "Look, we're about to leave, so if you guys leave first then we'll leave and you can come back and harass Artswatch and ARA to your heart's content." We had won this first round by making sure that Corpus Christi was not disrupted and that everybody who wanted to get in to see the play was able to do so. We decided to wait around until the play ended so we could walk people to their cars and ensure that the cast and crew were safe. While we were waiting -- surprise! surprise! -- five Klansmen from Indiana showed up, wearing street clothing instead of their usual sheets and hoods. They stood toe to toe with us on the sidewalk, begging to be allowed to distribute their grammatically mangled "literature" (can't the Klan afford a dictionary or spell-checker?).
At that very moment -- surprise again!! -- the police showed up and
immediately arrested an ARA member for wearing a bandanna over his nose and
mouth. (Louisville has a mask law ordinance on the books; it wasn't
enforced against the Klan when they held a rally here in 1996, but of
course it is vigorously enforced against groups like ARA.)
The Klan boys walked away, muttering something revealing like "That's what happens when you go up against the Klan -- you get arrested!" They retreated to their vehicles at a nearby parking lot. The police hung around for quite some time to question us and do a little important standing-around. Finally we saw the Klan boys drive by in their trucks with out-of-state plates. And then the police left too. Minutes later, we saw the Klan people go into a nearby building and peer at us from a second-story window. It was an obvious repeat of the previous situation where the opponents left, then the police left, then the opponents showed up again. Hmmm ... Finally the play ended. Donations were taken for bail money. The cast and crew were able to leave and lock up safely, and when the Artswatch building was empty, we decided to call it a night and start trying to free our jailed comrade. $1500 full cash bond, anybody want to donate? Anti-Racist Action PO Box 4964 Louisville KY 40204-0964 |
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