A scholar of social participation finds shared themes across «reopen» protests in many states, not all of which fit common popular or media narratives about the events.
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People take part in a «reopen» Pennsylvania demonstration on April 20, 2020 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
The “anti-lockdown” and #Reopen protests in the U. S. have powerful and secretive backers, but there are real Americans on the streets expressing their opinions.
As an ethnographer – someone who studies cultural participation – I’m interested in who those Americans are, and why they’re upset.
I spent the last week in what you might call an online road trip, studying 30 posts of protest footage from events in 15 cities. I found some shared themes, which don’t fit well with popular narratives about these protests.
Lansing Traffic Jam – Protest Coverage2020-04-16T05:22:15.000Z
Despite the economic toll the lockdowns are taking on America’s poor, no protesters put their own poverty on display, such as posting signs asking for help.
Instead, they held signs with more general language, like “Poverty Kills,” or expressed concerns like the restaurateur in Phoenix, Arizona, who told a passing videographer he was worried about his 121 “suffering, devastated” employees.
Their messages made clear that they didn’t want to ask for a handout or charity – but they were asking to be allowed to work. Protesters across many states asserted their work – or even all work – was “essential.”
In one video from an “Operation Gridlock” protest in Lansing, Michigan, where activists planned to block traffic, a protester filmed out the window of his car when he drove past a sign saying “Give me work not money.” The protester himself called out in approval, “Give me work not money, I hear that!”
A young man at an Olympia, Washington, event described work as a source not only of money but identity: “I wanna go back to work! That pride that you feel every day when you go home from work? That’s like nothing that can… be taken.”
Protest signs in Denver, Colorado, included the plaintive “I want my career back” and the entrepreneurial “Dogs Need Groomers.”
GettyA Trump supporter waves an American flag during a protest encouraging people to demand that businesses be allowed to open up, and people go back to work at the Country Club Plaza on April 20, 2020 in Kansas City, Missouri.
Despite alarming news reports that protesters were ignoring social distancing, many of the protesters observed safety guidelines. Photos showed at least some people wearing masks. A TikTok video recruiting participants for Michigan’s Operation Gridlock encouraged protesters to be safe; drone footage shows that most participants at the state capitol stayed in their cars, away from other people.
Protesters’ signs didn’t really downplay the threat of the virus, but rather compared it with potential harm from the lockdown. For instance, a sign in Denver was headed “Trading Lives” and featured a scale with virus deaths on one side, with unemployment, suicide and homelessness on the other.
Operation Gridlock -*DRONE FOOTAGE*- Lansing Michigan Protest – Patman Droneography#OperationGridlock #LansingProtest #MichiganProtest #Lansing #Michigan #Protest #Gridlock #Whitmer Subscribe to see more from Patman Droneography! Drone footage from the stay at home order protest today in Lansing Michigan -Subscribe For More Michigan Drone Videos! Please Consider Supporting Independent Media and Small Business https://paypal.
