Why I want to protect First Fridays! by Mo Karn
Editors note: Mo Karn submitted this essay for possible publication on GJWN. The following is abridged version. Portions dealing with the Copwatch activities were already covered here and are mostly not included in this article. Excerpts are in the order they were written and separated by white space. You can read the entire piece on her blog
(Karn’s view are not necessarily the views of myself or GJWN.)
Why I want to protect First Fridays!
I have never been a regular attendee of Richmond’s First Fridays Art Walk. In fact, over the years I have been a major critic of the event and the concept of the event.
When I have gone to First Fridays in the past it was mostly to support friends who had art on display or who were performing. I even helped to organize some First Fridays events- like the Richmond Zine Fest at Gallery 5 in 2009. And what I saw was mostly white people. And I saw a lot of white people who were more affluent. Which is definitely the type of crowd this sort of event is desinged to draw in.
So I mostly stopped going to First Fridays. I was not interested in participating in a redevelopment strategy that seemingly reached out only to suburbanites and fearful west enders, adventuring into the heart of a city they really don’t understand.
We heard that the police had maced the crowd a couple times, ridden their horses into the middle of crowds, and were trying to organize with Curated Culture (the non-profit that officially organizes First Fridays) to change the times of the event and potentially get rid of it altogether. We heard from many non-anarchists, respected community members about town, that the police were being very aggressive and that a lot of this aggressiveness seemed directed towards people of color. The media and others mostly spoke of the “youth”, but in this case the youth they meant was mostly youth of color.
As the night carried on, it became quite clear that First Fridays had changed. I liked it better. There were kids from my neighborhood, and overall a lot of people of color seemed to be enjoying a public space.
We had heard that a fairly pliable person in “charge” at Curated Culture (one of the many reasons I prefer no one to be in charge) had cooperated with the police and made a fairly unilateral decision to end First Fridays at 9pm. Therefore we figured that the police would be amping up their presence around that time. We were right. The police presence grew, with motorcycle, bike, horse, walking, and cruisers being used.
First Fridays has become something I never thought it would- diverse and actually reflective of the population of Richmond. But now that it has the police want to shut it down. That comes as no surprise to me, but it is something that other folks need to recognize. The police presence at August First Fridays felt to me, like the police were looking for trouble, and looking to create an excuse to shut down First Fridays altogether. I heard one commanding officer on the phone with his superior towards the end of the night (around 10pm) describing the situation as “a warzone”. That is a seriously troubling way for one of “Richmond’s finest” to feel about groups of people walking on the sidewalk. How is engaging one’s right to assemble create a warzone? It seemed to me that the police were the ones escalating, creating panic, threatening violence, and creating the feeling of war.
First Fridays in Richmond has broken the standard mold of redevelopment and become a viable public event that appeals to a variety of types of people.
We need to stand up to the institutionalized racism of the Richmond Police Department and help make there be safe spaces for “youth” and people of color to congregate and socialize.
We need to stand up to the Richmond Police Department’s attempts to control cultural events, social events, and public spaces and help make hanging out on a sidewalk not be an invitation for police harassment and brutality.
We need to stand up together and talk with each other about what we want and how we can get it.
The First Friday of every month is a great opportunity for these things to happen.
We don’t need a non profit organization or police force to sanction people coming together to celebrate community, culture, music, and art in downtown Richmond once a month. The sidewalks are ours now, the streets could be ours if we decide that we want them too.
Well, it’s certainly true that the police tend to react.
But I gotta tell ‘ya, that word “react” is a clue…a clue that the key to stopping them is you et al not acting contrary to cultural conventions in the first place.
It’s a classic case of cause and effect.
How about the “youth of color” stop getting into fights and ruining the event, and maybe the cops won’t need to interfere. The cops are there as a reaction to the current climate of the event. They weren’t needed when it was “affluent white suburbanites.” Those are the facts.
I’m not sure how deep your white guilt goes, but I’m sure if my mom bought me a house for me and my friends to live in, I’d be in the same midset, so I can’t get mad at you, Mo.
Unfortunately though, we’ll never see eye to eye. While your parents were buying you horses and playhouses, me and my mom were in the welfare line and my dad was in Spring St doing time. The police state wasn’t “out to get” my dad, he was knocking over banks, he needed prison to become the man he is now. I have no problems with the police, cuz I’m not doing anything to harm others.
The kids getting into fights and making the environment dangerous for others are getting broken up. It sucks for them, but it the police are attempting to make it work for everyone else.
You can’t move down here from Hanover into a house your mom bought you and claim this city as your own. It doesn’t work that way.
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2011/jan/08/tdmain01-the-wingnut-collective-well-liked-in-comm-ar-760811/
house was bought with a likely cosign from Karn’s father–not mother.
Just to take a moment to clarify some issues regarding my personal life, which for whatever reason are the points where others choose to attack (as opposed to addressing the content of any argument I make).
My mom (or dad) (or any other relative) did not buy me a house. I qualified for a mortgage on a house. However, due to the house being condemned, it could not be purchased with a traditional mortgage (banks don’t do this). Before the real estate market crashed and all the foreclosures started happening it would have been relatively simple for me to qualify for a construction loan, the type required for condemned properties. However, because in 2009 there were so many foreclosures and faulted loans on real estate in general and construction loans too, banks increased their requirements for qualifying for construction loans. They basically made it so you needed to be a contractor with experience to get a construction loan.
Which I was not.
So the solution, which totally had to do with class privilege, which I would never try to say didn’t, was that my parents took out a LOAN for the money to buy the house. I have a mortgage to pay back that loan. A 15 year mortgage, with whatever interest rate was the market standard at the time.
So no one bought me or my friends a house. My parents did use their equity to secure a loan that I am paying back. And that is totally class privilege. I understand that.
But the image folks try to create of me as a spoiled little rich girl is definitely off the mark. I work, I pay bills, I have a mortgage. I’m pretty nice in person too.
Just some other loose ends, for the persnickety rumor mongers:
My folks never bought me horses we had a couple rescued horses for a short period of time, and we built our own playhouses and playgrounds with my dad. I grew up in the country, running around playing in the woods. I have class privilege and I have white privilege. I don’t have a trust fund or large cache of secret rich kid money. I definitely grew up middle class, and basically since I have been an adult my parents have done well for themselves as capitalists and are upper-middle class. I went to private school in Richmond, St. Catherines. I was there on partial scholarship, partial financial aid, and the rest my parents took out loans for or paid. Same thing with college. I went to Hampshire college, I got a scholarship every year, also had financial aid, worked a work study job the whole time I was there, and my parents did pay the rest. I’m not ashamed of the facts, and they don’t make any idea of mine less valid.
I try not to waste time responding to crappy internet anonymous comments, cause I find them to be generally unhealthy and unhelpful.
It would be nice to clear the air on this. Cause I don’t do what I do or write what I write because I want to hear how other people think my living situation functions. I want to put ideas out there, and I want to have conversations about those ideas.
I am, as always, open to real life discussions with people who want to have honest conversations. If folks aren’t comfortable with that, we could write letters, talk on the phone, etc.
Mo,
You have a much distorted view of reality I must say. I don’t believe anyone needs or wants you to “Save First Fridays”. The event seems to have done very well without you and your band of anarchists in the past so we really don’t need you now. The police (or “pigs” as you call them) are trying to protect the people who go to these events not looking to stir up trouble so they should be commended if anything not criticizes by the likes of you or your kind.
Let it go and find some other ridiculous cause to support. Good riddance!
Sorry but this isn’t about color as much as some would like to believe. It’s about the way some young people of color have been behaving. It’s a simple concept but one that seems to elude people. The reason white people aren’t being approached by cops isn’t because they are white, it’s because they aren’t gathering in mobs on Broad Street, starting fights and harassing attendees of First Fridays.
Before Rendezvous was shutdown and these recent events occurred, the club held several parties geared toward black teens and several violent incidents occurred, spilling unruly kids out onto the streets. I was unfortunate enough to witness one of these events where gunshots were fired half a block away and a mob gathered in the middle of Broad Street, threatening the few cops that were there for security. Ms. Karns, what about this kind of behavior is acceptable and how exactly is catering to this particular crowd going to improve the situation? Are you really willing to sacrifice the safety of the law abiding public at large just so that you have the opportunity to throw out the PC term “diverse”? This event can be diverse without the presence of unsupervised and poorly adjusted teen mobs.
If people prove time and again that they cannot be trusted to behave in public then police are required to step in. Community centers and clubs alike have made the attempt to offer this crowd something to do and time and again that privilege seems to be abused. As my Dad likes to say “It isn’t their fault”. They were raised without discipline, in a culture that accepts violence and anti-social behavior as the norm so what else can you expect? It doesn’t mean however that they shouldn’t be held accountable and that the people trying to make this City a better place whether they be white, black, brown or purple shouldn’t push back against this kind of behavior. Wrong is wrong regardless of skin color. Your kind of “protection” is not needed, thanks.
Apparently an ever increasing police presence at First Friday has not helped. However, I think the key suggestion has been omitted from this cut/paste of the blog entry.
“The main crowd problems at First Fridays have one clear and simple solution. Close the street to traffic.”
From last year and previous years, the event has grown. Instead of reducing hours & futile efforts in wooing people away from the event such as setting up teen events at CenterStage… how about simply giving everyone more public space to enjoy First Fridays?
First Fridays should plan for its success and growth.
Keep supporting the event Mo, i saw you down there last time, you have a beautiful face, so smart friendly and open looking. I read your stuff, youre a good writer.
Mo — I appreciate your passion, but must say it is completely misplaced. Wow. I’m stunned. The police focused on those making trouble — not because they were black — but because they were making trouble. Lots of trouble. They were not celebrating anything, let alone “community, culture, music and art” as you say. What a joke. And that race is an element is absurd. I don’t need to tell you that our police chief, mayor and CAO are black. Give up on the tired race baiting. Any kids — black or white — that behave this way deserve special attention from the police. Let’s have a real conversation and agree that this kind of behavior is unacceptable. Period. We could learn much from Philadelphia’s mayor who recently spoke a bunch of truth about kids acting like thugs.
First Fridays was a war zone. If the problem isn’t fixed, the only people on Broad on a Friday night will be you and perhaps some misbehaving teenagers. I’d say have fun, but I won’t give up and allow this foolishness to prevail. Our community — black and white — will come together to continue advancing this city.
Anyone who calls cops “piggies” is incapable of providing an unbiased account of events.
Disregard and move on with life.
You’re probably the last person in town that I’d look to if I wanted an accurate accounting of anything, and your narrative here has done nothing but re-enforce that conviction. It’s not easy to be wrong all the time, but as one with far greater experience of First Fridays than you, I can say that you’ve managed it nicely. As regards First Fridays, you’re wrong about absolutely everything.
And by the way- In spite of all your blah blah blah, when your parents pay for your house and you pay them back over time, they bought a house for you.
mo,
you have certainly made the personal political. Your way of life is your ideology. If I still repped the community and set of values in which I grew up (by the way, far more fundamentalist than your own), I’d take questions about my personal life and upbringing in stride. Don’t be surprised when people are skeptical of a ‘privileged’ (as you call it) person saying they are standing up for poor people or “people of color.” (your words) and/or speaking on their behalf because you are constitutionally incapable of doing so. IN the words of Binyavanga Wainaina:
“We want to empower you. No, your mother cannot do this. Your government cannot do this. Time cannot do this. Evolution, it seems, cannot do this. Education cannot do this. Your IQ cannot do this.
No one can empower you except us. And if you don’t listen to us, our bad people, those RepublicanToryChineseOilConcessioningIanSmithing racists will come to get you: your choice is our compassionate breast or their market forces.”
http://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-03-oxfamming-the-whole-black-world
Once again, Mo Karn and merry band of trouble makers crawl out their hole to try make political name for themselves.
I glad the police are there to keep people safe. I just hope that it doesn’t pulls them out of the neighborhoods and prevents them from responding to calls.
Mo please just go away.
Joan Jett “Bad Reputation”
http://youtu.be/5RAQXg0IdfI
In an old episode of “Open Source” with Will Snyder on WRIR, I think the folks at Curated Culture make it pretty clear why completely shutting down Broad Street is a non starter. The costs and hurdles that have to be cleared to close Broad Street every month make that option impractical.
And shutting down the streets does nothing at all to address the teens behavior. Are people naive enough to think that these teens are acting this way because they don’t like the width of the sidewalk?
I don’t know Jeff, are you naive enough to think that they’re acting this way simply because of their age?