Why Black Lives Matter protests in Tacoma don’t look anything like Seattle, Portland
Protest, activism and demands for change can take many different forms.
As a community organizer with the Tacoma Action Collective, it’s a fact Jamika Scott knows well.
In Tacoma, the collective has long been working to push for necessary reforms to law enforcement, and in particular end the history of violence and murder against Black residents at the hands of police. It’s work that started well before the death of George Floyd or, locally, Manny Ellis, and will continue until we see an end to all senseless police shootings and excessive uses of force, like the incident in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that will likely leave Jacob Blake, yet another Black man, paralyzed from the waist down after seven bullets to his back.
Equally important, it’s not a fight the Action Collective undertakes alone in Tacoma. Before Floyd’s death inspired nationwide, justifiable outrage, local leaders and organizations had been pushing for years, calling for meaningful social justice reform in this city and beyond.
Sometimes it’s the voices of schoolkids. Sometimes it’s organizations like the Tacoma-Pierce County Black Collective or the Tacoma Urban League, with its longstanding ties to the Black community.
Sometimes it’s your neighbor, your babysitter or your friend, writing letters, or taking to the streets, or simply speaking up.
To truly achieve the change this country needs, all of it is important, Scott says. The pressure mounts, and that matters.
But, to date, what the charge toward justice and reform hasn’t looked like in Tacoma is anything like what we’ve seen in cities directly to the north and south of us.
While Seattle, Portland (and many other large cities across the U.S.) have been home to consistent, high-profile street protests — stretching on for months — in Tacoma this activism has often taken on other, less visible forms.
Scott said much of the activism in Tacoma has focused on trying to make direct contact with elected officials and push for change. While there have certainly been smaller public protests, and she’d like to see more, Scott noted that there have also been social media campaigns and efforts to utilize the monthly Tacoma City Council citizen’s forum to amplify marginalized voices.
In Tacoma, what there hasn’t been is tear gas, flash bang grenades or deployments of the National Guard. There have been no businesses destroyed or fires set. There have been no shootings. There have been no juvenile threats from the president’s Twitter account directed at Tacoma, or deranged FOX News propaganda segments pointing to imagined anarchy in our streets.
It’s something we can be thankful for, but it doesn’t diminish from the urgency Scott and many others feel.
There’s work to be done here, and reform that’s long overdue. Even with so many putting in the time and effort outside of a spotlight, the snail’s pace of change can inspire exasperation.
Like many, Scott, who is Black, harbors hope, but she also feels frustration, because she wants to see more.
“We have definitely come a long way, and that definitely gives me hope that we can continue to make progress,” Scott said this week.
“But it’s not fast enough, and the changes we’ve made aren’t big enough.”
Tearing Tacoma apart isn’t ‘constructive’
Like Scott, Tacoma City Councilman Keith Blocker has watched as large-scale Black Lives Matter protests have continued to inflame Seattle and Portland.
Representing a district that includes historically Black neighborhoods like Hilltop, Blocker said last week that he’s thankful that he hasn’t bore witness to broken windows or skirmishes in the street.
The credit goes both ways, Blocker said.
In the direct aftermath of George Floyd’s death, and again when Manny Ellis’ death was announced as a homicide in police custody, Tacoma residents rightfully — and repeatedly — took to the streets.
According to Blocker, who is one of two Black members of the Tacoma City Council, the city’s leaders did a good job communicating, and creating an atmosphere where people could exercise their rights to protest without the situation boiling over.
“When it all started, protests were going pretty heavy,” Blocker said this week. “I think the city’s approach to managing the protests had a lot of impact in terms of why we didn’t see riots and why we don’t see people get destructive. … It was strategic. It didn’t just happen. There was a lot of conversation and dialogue about how to manage people marching and manage people protesting.”
Equally important, however, was what Blocker said he saw from people on the front lines of the protests.
From members of the clergy to former gang members, Blocker said he witnessed Tacoma residents taking charge, time and time again, making sure the protests stayed safe for everyone involved.
“Tacoma is just an amazing community. … I’ve seen pastors tell people that, ‘Hey, we’re not going to get violent. We’re not going to swear at police officers.’ And I’ve seen reformed gangsters say, ‘We’re not going to get violent. We’re not going to swear at police officers. That’s not what we’re here for,’” Blocker said.
“That has kind of set the tone,” Blocker added.
“I don’t think any of us see tearing our city apart as being constructive.”
Regardless of the form that Black Lives Matter and social justice activism is taking in Tacoma, Blocker said he’s certainly heard the message being delivered — loud and clear.
And it’s working, he believes.
It just takes time.
“I’m getting hundreds and hundreds of emails from people who are asking for a radical transformation in our criminal justice system,” Blocker said, as just one example.
“I see the activism is starting to make its way into how we do politics, and how we manage our city,” he said.
Protests are ‘inevitable’
When discussing the type of destruction and violence we’ve seen at other protests across the country, Scott and Blocker agree.
Both are glad that Tacoma hasn’t experienced these things.
They also agree on another point, however, which can be harder to articulate.
When the protests — and those doing the protesting — get disingenuously politicized and broad-brushed, it purposefully obscures the point. When police react to a handful of agitators with indiscriminate tear gas, it’s just another way Black voices — and those advocating for them to be heard — get silenced.
When the news ticker at the bottom of suburban TV screens declares “riot,” it’s rarely telling the full story — and that has consequences.
The reasons that people took to the streets to begin with — to protest the continued oppression and state-sanctioned violence against people of color— gets lost in the contrived noise.
Even while condemning the destruction of private property or bricks thrown through a Starbucks window, Blocker said it’s important for people to understand the “dichotomy,” and “why people feel like they need to tear things up and be destructive.”
Put bluntly, it’s because the killings and abuses of power haven’t stopped, Blocker said.
“To worry so much about property and material things and not try to be critical and get at the root of why people are behaving that way, to me is a serious problem,” Blocker said. “People should question why they are using the destruction of property to negate the fact that Black people are being murdered.”
Scott, meanwhile, views the ongoing protests in places like Seattle and Portland as “inevitable,” given the circumstances.
While she doesn’t personally support the tactics of destruction, she understands where the impulse comes from.
“When you’re not being heard, you’re going to try something different,” she said.
Scott also acknowledges that there have been many times when she wished more people in Tacoma would flood into the streets.
Tacoma is where Manny Ellis took his last breath and where his family grieves his death, she noted, and yet she watches as people in other cities protest, night after night.
“Not that we want things to be at such a boiling point that it’s dangerous, but we need to get to a point where the city and the people of this city are recognizing the pain and the anguish that are fueling the protest, while also pushing them to understand that this can’t continue,” Scott said.
To get to that point — and to get Tacoma and this country where it needs to go — it’s going to take more, Scott said.
“Until people realize they have a responsibility in this, it’s always going to be this contentious back and forth, and it’s going to be frustrating,” Scott said.
“What’s going to bring change is everyone realizing they have a job to do.”
This story was originally published August 28, 2020 at 6:00 AM.
