The purpose of this extensive coordination and the reason we chose the March for Women’s Lives as a significant long-term Pink Bloque goal was to diversify and complicate the mainstream pro-choice agenda. We felt it did not include the voices and interests of all women: it focused too much on the issue of abortion and not enough on the issues of access to healthy birth control, affordable healthcare, global reproductive rights issues, sterilization and the harmful effects of Depo-Provera and other birth control targeted mostly at poor women of color. We attempted to add this voice to the dialogue at the march through conversations, flyers and our sassy pink presence.

The intersection of national and international social concerns is never far off. There was an anti-IMF rally the day before the March for Women’s Lives. Several members of the Pink Bloque attended and then joined the rest of the group at a pre- march event in DuPont Circle sponsored by Planned Parenthood. We taught the dance on the grass to a range of people, including a group of cute older women from Texas and a seven-year-old girl. Posed photographs were taken and a lot of people wanted to support us and buy Pink Bloque t-shirts. This contributed to the hyper-consumption which characterized much of the weekend’s events; somehow a mass protest became grounds for a mass market and those involved readily mistook wearing the same pro-choice themed thongs for unity of purpose. Another downer was the creepy anti-abortion bus with giant photo-shopped images of bloody “fetus” chunks which kept circling the event.

On the day of the March for Women’s Lives, despite the dreary weather, the streets were flooded with people heading toward the protest. There was electricity in the air and we couldn't wait to start dancing! With rhythm in our step, we played tunes all the way to the Washington Mall. An especially awe-inspiring moment occurred as we wheeled our powerful double amp system past a gathering of anti-choicers while it blared “Baby Got Back”; they could not help but turn their heads. Our destination and meeting point was right in front of the Washington Monument, behind the main rally in an open grassy area. The phallus-shaped edifice served as a beacon to all who wanted to overthrow the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy – and many people came. Some actually practiced the dance on the web site and showed up to practice with us. Others learned on the spot.

Once again, the anti-choicers tried to ruin the day by shoving their graphic posters in everyone’s faces. The signs were like the ones we would see all weekend, computer-enhanced images of supposed aborted fetuses (one unaborted fetus was even playing electric guitar!). We decided the best thing to do would be to draw attention away from them by creating a counter-spectacle. Though we were a bit intimidated by the situation, we took a risk and blasted our music, launching into our dance routine just across from them. The crowd loved it, and it seemed as though we had relieved some of the tension the anti-choicers had brought to the situation. Angry that we had stolen the spotlight, some men started walking in between us with their signs as we did our dance routine. We knew it was important to remain non-violent and deescalate the situation. Even though these men were obviously confronting us, it was more obvious that they could not dance. We therefore remained true to our tactic and danced them off our space. People from the crowd joined in to help us give them the message that they couldn't’t control our bodies – not at the march that day, or ever. Shows you what some dance moves and a couple of well pointed shouts will get ya! If only more problems could be solved with dance-offs instead of violence.

During the march itself we walked, we danced, we walked, and we danced. Whenever we stopped, a crowd would gather and get really into it. It was one of the only actions in which people were not timid about indulging the spontaneous dance party. We met lots of new dance partners and supporters. There were a few haters, mostly those who preferred their old chants to contemporary hip-hop (they obviously did not pay attention to Sir Mixalot’s disdain for Cosmo’s stereotypes or Outkast’s cry, “’Cuz you know we’re not happy here”). Overall people seemed glad to have some music to pump them up while they marched the long route, which was heavily flanked by anti-choice demonstrators.

The World Still Says No to War:
March 20, 2004, Water Tower Place to Federal Plaza, Chicago, IL
*Focus: Stop the war on Iraq
*Song: Hey Ya! by Outkast
*Banner: No banner – we got tired of our banner
*Outfits: Home made pink skirts, “2 Cute, 2 B Arrested” patches
*Action: On the one year anniversary of the start of the US led war on
Iraq and the protest of that war, mid-western activists came together
again to say to the war.

It was a sunny day under not such sunny US foreign policy. It is a year later and the US military is still in Iraq with death tolls mounting and the world still saying NO to this war. We gathered at Water Tower Place in Chicago’s upscale shopping district, hoping to reach the tourist and shoppers from Crate and Barrel to Armani. The planned march route up Michigan Avenue was not permitted by the city. There was a debate going on between the march organizers, Aaron Patterson on one side and Jesse Jackson on the other – Patterson was trying to get us to defy the police and take Michigan Ave, while Jackson was negotiating with police so that we would not inconvenience shoppers. Jackson and the police ended up taking us off of Michigan Ave and out of site of a large audience.

The cops were fully geared in their turtle suits creating a wall of stone faced hateration. Plastic cuffs and excrement were in abundance on the march route. Nonetheless, among the protesters, there was a positive vibe to the day. The All American Anti-war marching band was out in full force dressed up as flowers; the punk rockers were break dancing to the Pink Bloque tunes; and the Pink Bloque didn't’t even have to call out the counts to get us in unison! Even with all the work we put into this demo, another protestor asked us if we were even there to protest (Did they think we had come to shop?!) and later asked us to turn down our music cause they couldn't hear the speechifying (which they couldn’t hear anyway due to a poor sound system).

The end of the march was in the classic Chicago rally spot – Federal Plaza – where we kissed babies and then headed to a mid-priced chain restaurant once again.
~ Dara Greenwald

Wicker Park Anti Rape Anti Racism Forum
November 7, 2003 Chicago, IL
*Focus: The intersection of racism and how we understand rape
*Song: No song
*Banner: Rape: Not In Our ‘Hood, Not in Any Hood
*Outfits: Pink Bottoms and a Pink Bloque Top
*Action: We facilitated midnight discussion about a rash of sexual assaults in the Wicker Park Area and how media responses to it were racist.
It was a dark and stormy night…

Well, actually, it was a drizzly November evening when the Pink Bloque all met at a Bloquer’s house in Chicago’s Wicker Park. We had our usual meeting complete with check-ins and jokes and action debriefs and future planning and talking about gossip and outfits. As the meeting was wrapping up, some of us expressed anxiety around walking home alone at night. The gentrified Wicker Park area had recently been in the news, not for the outrageously dressed hipsters or horribly overpriced canned beer bars, but for a much publicized rash of stranger rapes. Women were being attacked on the street while walking alone at night, taken into alleys, beaten and raped. Understandably, everyone was on edge – and Pink Bloquers were no exception.

But what to do? Someone suggested we stage a Take Back the Night [TBTN] march and rally. TBTNs took off across the US during the 1970s on college campuses where feminists wanted to call attention to the crime of rape and the fears women had of walking around alone at night and being raped. We began to dissect this idea of TBTNs. We discussed how TBTNs accessed some very problematic myths about sexual assault. They promote the notion that most rapes happen to women who are walking alone at night. In fact, in most sexual assaults the victim knows her/ his attacker. The rapes in Wicker Park were getting a lot of publicity because of the demographic of the perpetrators and the victims. The victims were mostly white women in a gentrified area of town and the perps were men of color. This played right into the old-school [takin’ it back to the reconstruction, baby!] myth of the black male rapist. This myth, which purported that all black men had on their minds was raping white women, was used as an excuse for thousands of lynchings of men of color in the US over the past hundred or so years, and has filtered through to our popular consciousness today. This was intense. Talking about the intersections of rape and race got us worked into a tizzy. How could we bring attention to the very real crime of sexual assault while exposing the racist bent of popular discourse around this particular rash of rapes? How could we do an action that was fun and engaging around a topic that renders even the best of our friends and neighbors silent?

We say the Pink Bloque is about dancing and dialogue in the streets; but this time we wanted to the dialogue to be in the forefront, so we set up at an art space in the heart of Wicker Park and put the word out to all our homies. We elicited the help of Coya Paz and Aarati Kasturirangan, two seasoned anti rape and anti racism activists, to break down the rape – race nexus in an effective way. We decided we would have a dialogue about rape and race and then break into street teams to hand out flyers as people left the bars. The flyers would not only be about rape [in that we wanted to give the real deal about who rapes whom and where to squash the hysteria] but also about how men of color get targeted in our society. That was pretty ambitious, especially since we planned it for the weekend right after that meeting.

At midnight on 7 November, the venue was packed to the gills. In true Pink Bloque style, we asked people to introduce themselves and why they came. One after the other, people said, “Hey, I’m so-and-so and I’m here to support the Pink Bloque.” It was awesome, until the twentieth person said that and we felt the reality of how difficult it is to facilitate an open and thorough discussion about rape and racism.

Coya and Aarati really broke down the history of the Black Male Rapist and even tied it to how hipsters in gentrifying areas benefit from the circulation of that stereotype. When it came time for discussion, there were some awkward silences that even Ludacris could not fill. Conversation ebbed and flowed, but never really got rolling. We hit the streets with many of the crew that filled the room. We had flyers to pass out not only about the rapes, but also about racism. We were met with the usual range of reactions: amusement, dismay, interest, and even some hostility. We carted around the sound system, had some fun sidewalk dance parties and by 3am we went our separate ways.

Is all of this too overwhelming? Too underwhelming? You want some more information, explanation, observation and maybe even some hateration? Check out these resources:
Read: Angela Davis - Women, Race, and Class
Dr. Davis breaks it down about the myth of the black male rapist.
Maria Bevaqua – Rape on the Public Agenda: Feminism and the Politics of Sexual Assault
Maria Bevaqua outlines the intersections between the anti-lynching movement and anti-rape movements and how race got erased from mainstream feminist analyses and articulations about sexual assault.
Ann Russo - Taking Back Our Lives: A Call to Action for the Feminist Movement
Ann Russo unpacks the racist history of Take Back the Night Marches as well as really gets to the nitty gritty of what it means to be a white anti racist feminist.

If you or someone you know has been raped:
Call: The Rape Abuse Incest National Network
1-800-656-HOPE [1-800-656-4673] or visit www.rainn.org
Say what you will about Tori Amos, she ponied up the cash so that men, women, and everyone in between can find somewhere to heal from sexual trauma. It does not matter when it happened, or who believes you, or if you reported it – what matters is that you heal.

Know the facts: Most people are raped by someone they know. This makes the ordeal of being assaulted even more confusing where there is major trust issues broken.
Get the facts at www.icasa.org or just call RAINN and your friendly neighborhood rape crisis counselor will let you know the score.

Restorative Justice:
What the heck is that? No one is sexually assaulted in a vacuum. The whole community gets affected. The whole community has a responsibility to hold perpetrators accountable, help survivors heal, and rebuild community in a non oppressive way. Maybe this is what were trying to do that fateful November night. But we should have checked out more models from:
Incite! Women of Color Against Violence – has done some work around restorative justice and sexual assault within activist communities. Check ‘em at: www.incite-national.org

Domestic Violence Awareness Month Kick-Off
October 1, 2003
*Song: Sarai "Ladies"
*Outfits: Pink Sweat Suits
*Action: Every year, domestic violence and social service agencies all over the United States utilize the month of October for domestic violence awareness in their communities.

In the Pink Bloque’s hometown, the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network, a coalition of more than 100 service providers in the Chicago area who assist domestic violence victims, organized an awareness event to take place in Daley plaza on the first of October in 2003. The Pink Bloque, via a few of their co-workers, was asked to participate in this event. Because several members of the Pink Bloque currently, or at one time or another, have worked to assist domestic violence survivors, and of course because we are daters and not haters, this issue is very close to us, and so we decided to join in the spectacle. As a group that dances in the street, and causes a bit of a scene, there have been many times that we’ve been asked to “perform”. Well, unlike dancing bears, robot men, and circus clowns, perform on cue we do not. We are not for entertainment purposes only, and the element of surprise is key to our tactic. Sometimes this is hard for people to understand, but thankfully after several emails back and forth with a kind representative of the Battered Women’s Network, we were able to make it very clear that the reason we weren’t going to use their stage wasn’t because we’re shy. Pink Bloque members met at Daley Plaza, and after a few performances by local theater groups, well-informed teenagers, and a few musicians, we began our action. If you’ve ever been to a domestic violence awareness event, you know that while the presentation is very informative, it isn’t always cheerful or cute. So how do you cute up domestic violence awareness? We chose to disseminate information on healthy relationships, and read the city of Chicago their dating rights. We managed to talk to a high school class on a field trip, a few dirty old men, and several energetic women who had definitely had
it with their partners.
~Jane Bryan Ball

UnJustified Tour:
August 2003 (Pittsburgh, PA, Richmond, VA, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, MD, Philadelphia, PA, New York, NY.)
*Action Focus: Taking our style and message on the road. Spreading the word that occupation abroad and repression at home are UNJUSTIFIED!
*Focus: Taking a stand against the US Patriot Acts, the FCC deregulation of media ownership, and the US Occupation of Iraq.
*Song: Justin Timberlake’s “Rock Your Body”
*Banner: Occupation at abroad and repression at home are UNJUSTIFIED!
*Outfits: Pink muscle shirts, hot pink tank tops, pink t shirts with black capped sleeves, pink capris pants, black bottoms
*Action: After a edu-taining workshop about pink bloque tactics and a dance lesson, the Pink Bloque and the workshop participants hit the streets. We danced, tactically flirted, and handed out flyers about the wackness of the Patriot Acts, the FCC, and the occupation of Iraq.

In June of 2003 the Federal Communications Commission, a non-elected government agency, voted to relax certain market ownership restrictions in media outlets. Shortly thereafter, the congressional hearings to discuss these changes began. The FCC wanted to change the cross ownership restrictions. To state it plainly, changes to these rules would increase the ability of large media conglomerates to own multiple television stations in larger markets, media companies would be able to own up to 3 television stations and 8 radio stations. The FCC also attempted to lift a ban that prevented companies from owning a newspaper and television or radio stations in the same market. In larger cities this is bad enough, but in small towns, new rules would have made it possible for one media company to own most, or all of the media outlets within that town. This means that fewer people would be in control of what everyone hears, sees, and reads. It's as if suddenly your crazy Uncle Bill O'Reilly was your sole information source.In September of 2003, on the day the new rules were to go into effect they were blocked by a Federal Appeals court (the stay was sought by the Prometheus Radio Project a grassroots advocacy group for low power radio stations out of Philadelphia.) The decision was made despite the lobbying efforts of CBS, NBC, and FOX, not to overturn the proposed relaxing of regulations. According to the Democracy Now’s website (www.democracynow.com), over 2 million letters opposing the new regulations relaxing media ownership restrictions were sent to the FCC. A hearing on the new rules was set for early February 2004; however, the passing of the new regulations is still up in the air.

As you learned already in the 4th of July action, the Patriot Act sequel was about to go into effect and the war in Iraq was still raging, despite Bush’s declaration on May 2nd 2003: “Mission Accomplished”. In June of 2003 U.S. military ordered a halt to local elections and self-rule in cities across Iraq, hand picked mayors and administrators (many of whom were former Iraqi military leaders) were appointed. Bush’s approval ratings began to drop, and in July of 2003 combat deaths equaled the same as in the first Gulf War. So with the war raging, media companies merging, and the Patriot Act surveiling, we felt that the wack quotient had risen to dangerously high levels. This was an excellent time for us to be on tour. In our workshops we connected all these issues under the theme of occupation: military occupation of other countries; corporate occupation of public discourse; government occupation of our private lives through the Patriot Act.

We started out the tour in Pittsburgh, PA. Despite being in the town where Flashdance was filmed and despite having the opportunity to dance in front of the Pittsburgh Museum of Art just like Jennifer Beals, our first workshop was er...not that compelling, to say the least. Our presentation skills were tired and group energy was low. This began our tour long struggle with edutainment, as in how much “edu” there should be in our “tainment”. On one hand, we weren’t there to just dance around, make jokes and look cute (although we did), and on the other we weren’t preparing them for their master’s thesis (although we could). We were there to inspire creative resistance. So how do you cute up repression and occupation? We tried to figure this out over delicious Vietnamese food and came up with a sleeker, more satisfying version of our workshop for Richmond; in other words, it tasted great, but it was less filling. Richmond was fun, but some of us left feeling that our content was too watered down. This continued the tour long ritual of processing and recomposing after each workshop (and the Bloque loves a process).

Each workshop was completed with dancing in the streets. On the streets of Richmond, an angry sailor approached us to challenge our use of the word “occupation” on our banner. “It’s not an occupation!” he insisted, “We liberated those people.” With workshop participants in tow, we figured it was a bad time to turn tail and run, so instead we employed some c-level tactical flirting that seemed to get us off the hook and put President Bush on it. By the end of the discussion the sailor had apologized for yelling at us and told us that he appreciated what we were doing and that even though officially he had to agree with Bush’s policies, off the record he would not be voting for him in 2004.

In D.C. we played to a packed house, which may or may not have included an undercover government agent (depending on the paranoia level of the Pink Bloquer you ask). We had an excellent workshop, got to teach the dance in a public square, and freaked a surveillance truck during the street action. The tour continued to Baltimore, Philly and New York. Our last street action was shut down by the cops, but the cops couldn’t shut down the network of creative activism that was thriving at this time.
~Jane Bryan Ball

Patriot Act II: Summer of Sequels
July 4, 2003, Taste of Chicago
*Focus: The “new and improved” Patriot Act II
*Song: Gossip Folks, by Missy Elliott
*Banner:“Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security,” Ben Franklin
*Outfits:Hot pink capris and pink t-shirts
*Action: Roamed the Taste of Chicago to dance and raise awareness of the Patriot Act II.

The Pink Bloque returned to the Taste of Chicago on 4th of July weekend 2003 for another round of protesting the unjust Patriot Act, this time in its second incarnation as “The Domestic Security Enhancement Act.” The Act, with more than 100 new provisions, would grant the government such unjust rights as: access to your phone conversations, e-mails and other communications for 15 days without a warrant; permission to track books and periodicals checked out from the library, as well as your credit card purchases and the ability to use them against you if the government decides your interests are suspicious; the right to search your home, office, car and even your underwear drawers; the right to detain, try, and deport non-citizens without due process or even substantial criminal charges; the ability to deny your right to get the scoop on detainees via the Freedom of Information Act; and the right to further search, seizure and surveillance—just to name a few. Since it was blaringly obvious that together these provisions violated the rights of citizens and non-citizens alike, instead of the act being passed in its entirety the provisions got sneakily tacked onto other bills.

The Bloque took its cue from the glut of movie sequels out that summer, incorporating the Matrix II and X-Men United into our flyers. The Patriot Act was back and it was bigger and badder than ever. Roaming the festival in hot-pink capris and tank tops, we set out to fill the snacking masses at the ToC in on our interpretation of the word “patriot.” We danced to Missy Elliott’s “Gossip Folks” and carried a banner that said: “Those who give up freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security,” using the words of Ben Franklin to access a familiar authority figure to make the message easier for people to digest. We handed out flyers informing passersby of the ways in which the Patriot Act II was violating their rights every day (in case they forgot), and how the new additions to the Act further put at risk civil liberties in this country. We felt that Missy had it right with such lyrics as “I’m a bad mamajama goddammit motherfucker you ain’t gotta like me,” and “Need to talk what you know,” clearly outlining the fact that surveilling your neighbors behind their backs is just plain gauche. After all, lyrics like “Step to me get burnt like toast!” could easily be interpreted by “Big Brother” as a terrorist threat. Dancing at the Taste of Chicago on Independence Day was a no-brainer, important both because of the holiday celebrating the “land of the free” and access to a broad variety of Polish sausages-toting attendees with sequined American flags across their chests.

Security was tighter at the Taste this year, and the haters were determined to shut us down. Nonetheless, we squeezed in three dances before a Mountie asked us to move into a performer-only area. We evaded him and his steed long enough to relocate and do the dance again. When approached by security in the midst of our next attempt, we did not stop the dance and quickly employed tactical flirting—“Wait, are you saying that we’re not even supposed to be here?” As the Pink Bloque continued the booty shake, and the guard watched disapprovingly with arms crossed, the tactical flirt continued. “Permit, you say? How does one obtain one of these so-called permits?” It worked. The guard in the bright yellow ToC-issued uniform was stymied by our polite questions and gyrating asses. We finished the dance, got flyers into the outstretched hands of the crowd that had congregated and fled with our hot-pink banner trailing behind us. We made it as far as across the street where we encountered a picket line in front of the Congress Hotel comprised of service employees fighting for better wages and benefits from. One of the Union organisers asked us to dance with the picketers to get attention for the strike and lift the spirit of the protesters. We busted out the dance several more times for the enthusiastic strikers. It was by far the most exciting action of the day.

Later, as we sipped milkshakes next to a table full of cops at mid-priced family restaurant in downtown Chicago, one Bloque member was slyly passed a note by a lunching police officer. “I’m not some psycho cop, and I do not believe in the Patriot Act, either. Do you want to have coffee sometime?” Just goes to show that you never really know who’s watching!
~Anne Dienthal and Kate Dougherty
Resources:
http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID=12126&c=207
http://america.post911timeline.org/newhome.html

International Day Against the War
February 15, 2003
*Focus: Stop the war on Iraq
*Song: Family Affair, by Mary J. Blige
*Banner: “Don’t Need No Hateration, Registration, in this Dance for Me”
*Outfits: Pink sweat suits, “Drop Beatz, Not Bombz” patches
*Action: Following a day of passing out “Valentines” inviting the public to the organized anti-war protest in Chicago’s Pakistani community, the Bloque danced, the crowd marched, and our Anti-War Dance Mix played on from the inside of the suitcase we towed along beside us.

In the space we have here, we can hardly begin to describe the wackness that has characterized US Foreign policy in general and towards Iraq in particular. The level of inanity and misinformation that brought support for this war and the suffering it has wrought cannot be overstated. Dozens of books and films are out there (i.e. The Freedom: Shadows and Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq by Christian Parenti,
Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn't Tell You by Norman Solomon, Reese Erlich, Howard Zinn (Introduction), Sean Penn,
Uncovered: The War on Iraq, Control Room).

The Bush team had many convinced that Iraq posed an immediate threat to us through their developments of “Weapons of Mass Destruction” which were never found and made an untrue link that Saddam Hussein was connected to Al Queda and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in NY. Now Saddam Hussein was a totalitarian dick but he learned his dickish ways through the help of USA CIA education. Geez – this is a sick cycle, isn’t it? Besides, there are other repressive regimes in the world and the US government was not drumming up support to invade them. This begs the question as to why so many Americans believed invading Iraq was such a good idea.

There were numerous protests leading up to the day when war was declared but the largest mobilization happened on February 15, 2003.
World wide this was the largest protest against a war in history and how did the US President respond? He said, “I don’t listen to focus groups.”

On Valentine’s Day, we went into downtown Chicago (we love a lunchtime action) and handed out heart shaped invitations to join the protest against war and racism. The Chicago protest was in the Indian and Pakistani neighborhood on Devon Ave the following day and focused on the INS’s policy that had been initiated on September 11, 2002 called the National Security Entry/Exit Registration System (NSEERS) which required all male nonimmigrant over the age of 16 from designated countries to report to the INS to be questioned, fingerprinted, and photographed. The first 20 countries designated for this policy were Arab or Muslim (except North Korea) and led to many unnecessary detainments. In December of 2003, due in part to public outcry, the INS suspended yearly registration requirements but before that happened over 82,000 people had registered and 2,870 had been detained as a result and many are now facing deportation. (info taken from America’s Disappeared, edited by Rachel Meeropol) Our banner reflected both a cry for peace and against this registration policy borrowing from Mary J. Blige’s song, Family Affair, and her eloquent use of the term haters in the line in the song, “We don’t need no haters, just trying to love one another.” We agreed; we don’t need no hateration, nor registration!

One of the challenges of this action was the bitter February Chicago weather but in spite of that we had an amp breakthrough and discovered the 30 V portable PA which you can read about in this publication. We also discovered that in picking a song, we needed to be more mindgul about find a song we could listen to 1 000 times during practice and still want to hear it during an action (this was not one of those songs). We had another breakthrough in that others joined in the roving dance party. We also had the most choreographed dance yet and even yelled the counts aloud in order to stay on the beat – in spite of Michael Jackson’s claim that when you dance from the heart then you don’t need to count.

On March 20, the bombs starting dropping on Baghdad. Members of the Pink Bloque joined more than 10,000 people who flooded the streets of Chicago in protesting the war on Iraq. In that awful moment, we did not feel like it was the right time for a party – nor did we feel much like dancing; so we left the sound systems at home that night.Some members of the Bloque joined with other affinity groups and some dressed up in yuppie-flage. The police were unprepared when we all took Lake Shore Drive in rush hour and many cars stuck inside the protest turned off their engines and cheered us on in solidarity and against the war (of course others gave us the finger). After exiting Lake Shore Drive, the cops encircled and detained many citizens in the march, arresting over 600 people. A few members of the Pink Bloque found an abandoned anarchist banner held up with wooden sticks and picked it up to return it to the group that presumably was being detained by the pigs. An older woman passing by said to us, “Don’t put that through a window.”
~Dara Greenwald

If you don’t already suffer from what the Onion coined “Outrage Fatigue”, check out these websites:
News:
Electronic Iraq www.electroniciraq.org
Iraq Activism:
www.voicesinthewilderness.org
http://www.occupationwatch.org/
http://www.iraqbodycount.org
General Anti-war Activism
http://www.unitedforpeace.org
http://www.infoshop.org
http://www.afsc.org

Transatlantic Business Dialogue
November 8, 2002
*Focus: The secrecy of the nasty boys of TABD
*Song: Nasty Boys, by Janet Jackson
*Banner: “Hey Nasty Boys of the TABD: What Have You Done for Us Lately?”
*Outfits: Pink sweat suits, “2 Cute 2 B Arrested” patches
*Action: Represented at organized protest in front of downtown Boeing Inc. headquarters to dance and flyer public with facts about Boeing practices and the covert goings-on of the TABD

The Trans Atlantic Business Dialogue (TABD), which had its iniquitous inception in 1995, is a small group of some 100 powerful EU and U.S. CEOs with unequaled and inequitable access to top government officials from the U.S. Administration and EU Commission. TABD policies influence EU and U.S. agenda and help set the program for the WTO. Their semiannual "dialogue" with public officials is closed to the public - even as it seeks to advance Big Business's control over the public sphere through zealous and destructively effective advocacy of global trade liberalization. The leaders of this band of elite multibillion-dollar corporations (members, ever changing, have included capitalist moguls Citigroup, The Dow Chemical Company, Merck and Co, Astrazeneca, Time Warner, Visa Int'l, Deutsche Bank) rotate in hosting this meeting. During the 2002 protest some very nasty boys led the meeting: Charles Masefield, of British defense giant BAE Systems, and Boeing Co. Chief Executive, Phil Condit.

In the weeks leading up to the 2002 meeting, the Chicago media focused not on TABD’s injurious agenda, but on the protester "threat." Most articles invoked misguided "facts" and outrageous images from windows. One Chicago Tribune Redeye headline read: "Our City Will Not Shut Down: Police Determined to control next week's protests" while the Suntimes exclaimed "Goon Squad Ready for Protest". The latter title refers to the 130 "Special Response Team" men chosen to cross police lines and take on unruly protesters. Each member of the Goon Squad was 6'4" or taller and was decked out in new riot gear. They and 2000 other policemen and women were paid $1.56 million in overtime to model these lovely new costumes. With the fear generated by the police and the media, we met and agreed we were not going to be scared out of protesting this event. We teamed up with another group (http://www.counterproductiveindustries.com/) who made “disinvitations” that highlighted how exclusive the TABD meeting was and handed them out commuters in the days leading up to the protest.

We decided to find a space for humor in a repressive environment and came up with the patch “2 cute 2 be arrested” as a direct response to the media and police hysteria surrounding this protest. For some reason this patch had sticking power with the press and it is often quoted as our motto when actually it was a contextual and specific response to this situation. Although we didn’t choose a current pop hit, we felt that Janet Jackson’s song “Nasty Boys” had inadvertently been written about the boys of the TABD.

The protest felt small and ridiculously policed which was quite stressful for us but we danced anyway even when our only audience at times was the cops. The cops were constantly shooting video of the protestors and flanking the sides as we marched through downtown so that we were unable to get our message out to the non-protesting crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle. The people on the sidelines very much wanted to get our flyers and in some instances when there was break in the wall of police we were able to get some to the audience. We tried a new sound system, this time a boom box from Best Buy that we later returned. It didn’t give us the volume we were looking for but we still danced and marched through the streets challenging the secrecy of the powerful who believe in profits over human need.

Wicker Park At Night
September 29, 2002
* Focus: Date Rape
* Song:: Hot in Herre, by Nelly
* Banner: None
*Outfits: Black pants, Pink Bloque T-shirts with “Can’t Touch This” silkscreen, pink hands on booty
*Action: With five different flyers in hand, the Bloque called attention to ourselves by dancing in front of popular Wicker Park intersections and hotspots, and passed out information containing facts for men and women on the dangers of date rape

The idea of this action was conceived, like most other great ideas, in a bar. A member of the Pink Bloque had recently attended a workshop on street harassment at Ladyfest Bay Area and, back in Chicago, an inebriated discussion ensued about ways to protect oneself against it. Talking about street sexual harassment got us talking about various other forms of sexual violence against women. We decided it was a good time for an action.

Flash forward. It was just like any other Saturday night in Wicker Park - except we didn't go into the bars this time. Instead, we strategically positioned ourselves at high-traffic intersections and in front of drinking establishments and danced, danced, danced. We set out at the stroke of midnight clad in tight black pants and pink baseball tees. On our shirts was written "Can't Touch This"; our asses bore hot-pink felt hands.

But it didn't go off without a hitch. When we usurped the valet parking zone in front of one club, a bouncer told us we had to leave. We had no choice but to give him a lesson in public space reclamation. [See insert] The biggest showdown was yet to happen. We turned the corner and headed north, positioning ourselves across the street from a bar where yuppies go to “slum” by drinking beer out of cans. The open windows were teeming with men eager to subject our dance to their objectifying gaze. They catcalled and shouted for us to come closer – but they weren't too happy when we got there. After they ascertained the content of the flyers, they crumpled them and booed.

~Anne Dienethal and Amanda Parris
For more information about men who are not jerks check out; www.mencanstoprape.org
For ladies fighting the good fight check out: www.rainn.org

Taste of Patriotism
July 4, 2002 at "Taste of Chicago"
* Focus: US Patriot Act
* Song: Hot in Herre, by Nelly
* Banner: “Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free, the Wretched Refuse of Your Teeming Shore. Send these, the Homeless, Tempest-tost to Me.”
* Outfits: Black bottoms, white tank tops with “Pink Bloque” silkscreen, flyer aprons
* Action: Roamed the ToC to dance and pass out information on the US Patriot Act, illegal detention of immigrants in the US, and the crisis of the destruction of public housing in Chicago. Usurped Bally’s fitness stage to implement Pink Block Roving Dance Party tactic

We decided to use the July 4th holiday, traditionally dedicated to celebrating our “freedom loving country” (and eating encased meat products), to strike out on own and give the people some examples of freedom loving such as the treatment of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center and the PATRIOT Act.

Way before the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandals became water cooler fodder, the Pink Bloque was talking about the treatment of prisoners and detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center. You see what had happened was, the Bush administration decided not to classify suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners held there as POWs, thus denying them any rights they would have been accorded under the Geneva Convention. This made it much easier for the US Government to detain and torture anyone they determined was a “freedom hater”.

The PATRIOT act, passed a little over a month after 9/11, included a number of wack provisions. It expanded terrorism laws to include “domestic terrorism” which meant that political organizations in the US could be subject to surveillance and even legal action. It also expanded the definition of “terrorist” so that pretty much any political advocate that challenged the status quo could be considered a threat to national security. This meant that any group or person suspected of being a “terrorist” could be subject to secret searches, including surveillance of their internet use and library records.

With all this on our minds, we went to the Taste of Chicago dressed in white shirts with Pink Bloque and shooting stars silk-screened on them and black bottoms. We didn’t have much of a sound system to speak of, just a rather small, battery powered boom box. Our banner had a phrase from Emma Lazarus’ famous poem “The New Colossus.”
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled asses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me”

We thought this phrase, usually trotted out to reinforce the phony idea that the US is a beacon of hope and freedom to the teeming masses, was significant because it highlighted the gap between the myth and the reality. The US, in fact, really didn’t want any huddled masses. (except those masses willing to work jobs for less than minimum wage). We also wanted to highlight the fact that many of the provisions contained in the Patriot Act were used to target immigrants, not “terrorists”. This action, as it was the first time we ever had any semblance of choreography, was a bit scary for us (for the viewers, too!). We were going to talk about how fucked up the government was, and all we had to defend ourselves were poorly choreographed dance moves stolen from Britney’s “Baby One More Time” video. Because it was the first time we had tried to do anything in sync (n’sync), learning this short set of moves took forever. Even after multiple practices, we were woefully out of step with one another. Our body memory was about as good as Ronald Reagan’s. But there were civil liberties to fight for, so we swallowed our pride (and some Tequila Rose), gagged, and went off to the Taste. The reaction was a bit much at first. No one could figure out what we were and why we were there. We didn’t dance very well, didn’t match that great, were not asking for money but rather shoving political material into peoples’ hands. We were not prepared for the staring and comments, which actually were all friendly, except for the lady who asked us if feminists were supposed to wear shorts. It was laughable—people were perplexed—but the adrenaline rush set in and we quickly set up and danced again in front of Buckingham Fountain.

It was hott, we were really sweaty and had decided to pack it up when we came along the Bally’s Fitness Stage where the Bally Girls were performing for the crowd. We stood there for a second, eyeing the stage, when “It takes 2” by Rob Base and DJ Easy Rock came across the loud speakers. We glanced around at each other and knew we had to throw down again. So we did.
All that dancing worked up an appetite and thus began our tradition of eating at mid-priced chain restaurant in the Loop. As we sat there, sweating and eating our mozzarella baguettes, we giggled and remarked to each other about how shocked we were we didn’t get our asses kicked.

Because this was our first action where our “vision” sort of came together, meaning: we used a popular song, we did a choreographed dance, and we had semi-coordinated outfits, it really felt like a success to us. Unlike after later actions, we didn’t feel the need to process what happened and critique ourselves harshly. Much like after the first time you have sex with that special someone and before you find out they fart in the bed, we just basked in the afterglow.

Probably the biggest lesson learned was that a battery powered boom box was NOT gonna cut it (see the sound system section).
We also learned that having people there to help us, watch our purses, hold the banner, run for alligator on a stick was key.
We also learned that people were not going to necessarily attack us, in fact we were told that we were “Balls Out.” Because it did go so well, we were emboldened and determined to go out and try more things.
~Kate Dougherty

Resources
http://www.pbs.org/flashpointsusa/20040629/infocus/topic_01/timeline_sep2001.html : Ignore Bryant Gumbel at the top and skip to the convienent timeline that provides a nice overview of Post 9/11 events, including key legislation.
http://www.cdt.org/security/011031summary.shtml: Center for Democracy and Technology, two things we love in one convenient website. Beyond just breaking down the Patriot Act and offering simplified “Bottom Line” descriptions, it offers resources on issues of civil liberties on the interweb.

http://www.globalissues.org/HumanRights/Media/Corporations/Owners.asp : good website because it frames media conglomeration as a global issue and examines how US media conglomeration impacts the entire world. Tons of helpful, well organized links

http://www.theyrule.net according to the website, “They Rule allows you to create maps of the interlocking directories of the top companies in the US in 2004.” Nice site where you can choose a company, look at the members of the board of directors and then see what other boards the members are on. Create your own map or look at ones others have created, like “I smell no conspiracy.”

http://www.thenation.com/special/bigten.html: fun website that provides easy to read diagrams of which companies own what media outlets.

May Day
May 1, 2002
* Focus: Wage Inequity
* Song: She Works Hard for the Money by Donna Summer
* Banner: “US Women Earn 27% to 36% Less than White Men for the Same Work”
* Outfits: Hot pink Dickies and iron on letters
* Action: During downtown lunchtime danced and passed out flyers informing public of wage disparity amongst various gender and racial groups

May Day is many things to many people --- some people celebrate it as an ushering in of springtime, but it is also known internationally as a day to recognize workers and their struggles against oppressive bosses. May Day has special resonance in Chicago after the events in Haymarket Square in 1886. During that week, tens and thousands of workers across the US went on strike, took to the streets, and clamored for more humane working conditions. During a rally in Chicago, a bomb was thrown and killed a Chicago police officer. The ensuing melee resulted in several more police being killed and a lot of demonstrators being wounded. Ultimately, four Chicago – based anarchists were sentenced to death ostensibly for inciting this riot but actually for rallying the workers against the exploitation of workers. All over the world people evoke these anarchists as champions for workers rights – that is everywhere except the US, where May Day is not recognized by the government and / or businesses.

Because of what happened at Haymarket Square, May Day is usually a big deal with the radical left in Chicago. People love to break out their favorite olive drab army jackets, gather downtown and chant “Whose streets, our streets!” and get their obligatory nod to labor history on. We figured it was the perfect opportunity to test-drive our hot new tactic. This was the very first Pink Bloque dance action ever! We wanted to up the cuteness quotient as well as the feminist content of the usual May Day rhetoric. We decided to focus on wage inequality we decided to make a flyer about unfair labor practices in the U.S. that gave women and people of color the shaft when it comes to the paychecks. [Really, 75 cents on the white man’s dollar? Nell Carter would say, “Gimme a Break!” Also, because we are consumers of cute clothes that are often constructed in sweatshops we made some flyers highlighting the very uncute conditions in which they were made.

We all came out during our lunch breaks from our respective day jobs. We went to city hall, hoping to see a large contingent of puppet-wielding activists; but when we got there, we were greeted by four anarcho-hippies and two cops. So we pressed play on the boom box and danced around to “She works hard for the Money”, much to the amusement of the cops and the anarcho-hippies. Fueled by the rush of not getting arrested, we moved our act to more heavily trafficked sidewalks in Chicago’s downtown. Passersby took our flyers, curious and amused by the pink clad women carrying around a bedsheet with felt letters on it.

After an hour or so of rewinding “She Works Hard for the Money” and trying to cram flyers about wage inequality into the hands of overworked women in pantyhose and sneakers doing errands during lunch, we went back to our jobs only to find that our paychecks had not been effected by our clamoring for economic justice. Undaunted, we realised that it only meant that the next time, we needed to go onto the streets with a louder system, better practiced moves, and less expectations of a big group to join.
~Rachel Caidor

To find out more about the issues we addressed in this action check out:
www.sweatshopwatch.org

Haymarket Scrapbook – Published by Charles H. Kerr Press