Is the Environmental Movement a big white tent? [Greg Laden's Blog]

Lennox Yearwood Jr was on his way to speak at the March for Science in DC, when something bad happened. He tells us:

…at the March For Science in Washington DC on Earth Day, I was assaulted, roughed up, and detained by police in the shadow of the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture. It was not part of an action or planned civil disobedience. It was sadly a much more regular event – an interaction between police and a person of color gone very wrong.

He continues:

I was walking in the rain and carrying an umbrella down Constitution Ave. from the National Archives Building towards the Washington Monument. Constitution Ave. was closed and I was excited to see so many people out for the Science March. As I approached 14th St. on Constitution, the walk sign was on, but there was an MPD officer in the middle of street letting cars proceed across 14th so I stayed on the curb. I waited as the crossing signal turned red and then it turned back to walk, signaling clearance for all of us on the curb to cross, which we started to do.

I was the only person of color in the immediate area.

The police officer then told everyone to get out of the crosswalk. By then I was about half way across the street. I paused in the middle of the street and then decided it was easier to proceed to the other side of the street, in effect getting out of the crosswalk.

The officer then ran up to me, grabbed me forcefully by my jacket and swung me around, slamming me up against a food truck. I yelled, “What are you doing? Stop grabbing me.” He told me to stop resisting, to which I responded that I wasn’t. I dropped my umbrella, and put my hands up. I told him I was there for the Science March. He said he had to detain me because I “could be on drugs.” YES, he really said that.

Conspiracy to jay walk. It gets worse. More cops show up, more tension. Eventually it deescalates as Reverend Yearwood’s identity is established. Read the whole account here.

From Think Progress:

After he was grabbed by the police officer, “the crowd didn’t really do anything,” Yearwood told The New Republic. “I saw how quickly they were to accept there was a person of color being detained,” he said.

More at Think Progress

I have to say, that I just can’t imagine this happening at the Minnesota March for Science. There is a huge overlap in who shows up at these events in the Twin Cities, and the events cover everything from economic justice to #BLM to women’s’ rights. It is not in the nature of our community to allow someone to be physically harassed by the police at an event like this, without comment or intervention. Our community has been tested in the past and has done OK in this area, especially since the RNC in Saint Paul when the true potential of a city-wide police state was unleashed on our community, we fought back on several fronts, and changed our culture somewhat. I don’t know anything about the DC environmental community but apparently it is in need of some adjustment. Ours, here in the Twin Cities, probably does too, but this? I don’t think so.