Just Getting to the Protests - Still a Struggle

Marta Russell

On Monday, the first day of the Democratic Convention, I was sitting in my wheelchair in the shade at Pershing Square, waiting for my compadres to join me for the “People Before Profits” march when a fellow activist recognized me and came over to say hello. Garbed in a Green T-shirt, it turned out that Ron was part of the security team for the protests. After some catching up on the past, I began to get anxious that my fellow activists with disabilities had not arrived at the square as planned and remarked that I hoped nothing had happened to prevent them from getting there. Ron confidently replied, “Oh, it's no problem at all to get here. You just ride the red line like I did.” Another organizer called and he had to split in a flash.

That moment crystallized for me -- what? Let's call it an “experience gap” in understanding disabled peoples' material reality. Some wonder why there are so few disabled persons who show up for demos. I wonder how many activists have no idea what it takes for a wheelchair user to get from point A to point B in Los Angeles (for that matter, anywhere else in the nation). So I'm going to take this opportunity to expound upon one of the ongoing big problems - lack of a working accessible public transportation system.

The ADA mandated accessible public transportation in 1990. Buses were to install lifts and cities were to offer an alternative paratransit system for disabled persons who qualified to use it. Yet ten years of lax enforcement means that we still don't have a steady and reliable transportation system in place. Take what Ruthanne coming from Northern California had to go through to participate in the demo in LA. In order to qualify for LA paratransit services, Ruthanne had to get her access certification transferred from her local paratransit to LA paratransit, better known as Access Services. On August 4 (nine days before the scheduled protests) she requested that her local office fax that information to LA. When she arrived on the 12th she attempted to book a ride through Access Services but a supervisor told her that since Ruthanne did not have an Access ID card she could not book a ride until she got one. In order to straighten out the mix-up, it took Ruthanne more phone calls to Access Services which meant being put on hold for long periods of time and spending more money for the toll costs until the situation was rectified. “It seemed to be a case of the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing,” she explained, then added “-- that's being kind.”

Audrey, another wheelchair user in our group, had other difficulties with Access Services. Sunday the 13th those disabled persons planning to protest had set up a planning meeting to discuss our press release and details for the two days we would be marching that week. Everyone except Audrey got to the planning meeting pretty much on time, even counting allowances for crip time (at our own speed). Then, we waited and waited -- but no Audrey. At long last the manager at the restaurant brought a cell phone to our table. It was Audrey. She had waited for Access Services to pick her up for over one hour and they NEVER showed up. The manager overheard our travails about transportation and shared with us how one of his customers had come for dinner one night and was still waiting for his paratransit ride home after the restaurant closed late that night. The manager said he felt horrible about it, but there was nothing he could do to help.

Access Services contracts with private companies which have lift-equipped vans to provide rides. The government pays them very well, something like $75 per ride goes to the contracting company. How well would nondisabled customers react to being made to wait for hours for a cab -- even ten minutes is too long for most New Yorkers, eh? What would they do if their cabs regularly never showed up at all and stranded people in the streets at all hours of the day and night? What if a cab company were to require that nondisabled customers book a ride 24 or 48 hours in advance and even then would fail to show up on time or not at all? Disabled customers DO complain to Access Services until they are blue in the face but little changes. Both the government and the private companies are making out fine, no matter that disabled citizens get treated like dirt. Some significantly disabled persons have told me that they will not risk a ride with Access Services because they believe their lives are endangered by such a shoddy system.

My own experience shows yet another side of the problems we face getting places. On the second day of Democratic Party Convention demos, the brakes on my van went slack while I was driving on the Hollywood Freeway in route to Pershing Square. The brake petal made a squishing noise when I pushed down on it and the brakes would not make contact until I pressed the petal all the way to the floor. Scary? Yes. Way-laid? More than I needed to be.

First complication: I knew that a tow truck would take forever and I would miss the demo entirely. And what about my wheelchair in the back? Lifting the van at an angle could do costly damage to it. If I took my wheelchair out of the van, how would I get to the Dodge dealership in Van Nuys, a long long way from where I was? The tow truck would not be accessible. Would there be a bus stop anywhere nearby with a bus route to where I needed to go? I decided to X all those possibilities and drove my van with the damaged brakes along the side streets slowly making my way to the dealership, all the while hoping the brakes would not completely fail before I could get there. I arrived, frayed, but physically all in one piece.

When I left the repair shop, I still had hopes of making it downtown for part of the first march activities by using the public bus and subway system to get there. Second complication: I made my way to the bus stop on Van Nuys Blvd. and sat for about 20 minutes out in the direct scorching heat (temperatures here during the demos were in the high 90s) because the bus stop did not have any shelter from the sun. There was just one bench and no shade anywhere nearby. When the bus at long last came the driver attempted to deploy the wheelchair lift but the curb was too high for the lift to make a landing. He said “I cannot deploy the lift.” I replied that he could drive the bus to the corner which was just a few feet away and let the ramp down directly onto the street. He looked rather confused and then refused to do that. Instead, he told me I would have to wait for the next bus and abruptly left me sitting there eating bus fumes.

I was fuming by then. Nothing to do but wait. I commiserated with others who had since come and were waiting for the bus too in the unrelenting sun. Time passed, but excruciatingly slow. Fortunately, the next driver was competent with wheelchair lifts. He immediately went down to the corner and deployed the lift in the street (as I had requested the first driver to do) and I boarded the bus. My hopes were dashed though for making it to the demonstration because an extra 45 minutes had been spent trying to get a driver to pick me up. But never mind cause, hey, I was wiped out by my hour in the direct sun to do much more anyway.

To get back to that first day when I was waiting for the others to arrive, I wound my way through the growing crowd to park my chair near the Metro station - the most likely spot they would see me. By then about 35-40 LAPD officers had planted themselves at the corner and across the intersection. I was so close to them that I could count the bullets in their ammunition belts, the chemical weapon shotgun shells criss-crossed across their chests, and the buttons on their shirts. As they stood stiffly holding their pepper spray guns and other assault weapons in front of them I felt cold. Even in that heat a chill went down my spine. It wasn't from fear, it was from disgust; from an in-my-face reminder that I lived in a police state. The riot cops were amassed in unprecedented numbers -- fully armed -- for a peaceful civilian demonstration for which permits had been obtained. For weeks, the LAPD had put up a struggle to violate peoples' constitutional right to protest by insisting on isolating the demonstators far from the convention at the Staple Center. The ACLU had prevailed in court on our first amendment rights to protest at the convention sight and the LAPD did not like the fact that they had lost that battle. As the sea of blue grew larger, hundreds and hundreds of cops, it seemed like overkill. Perhaps they were chomping at the bit for revenge. Indeed Carol Sobel of the ACLU read the attack on the civilian crowd that Monday night after the Rage Against the Machine concert as retaliation of sorts.

Many have reported on the unnecessary violence on the part of the police that Monday night but the LAPD had shown its bravado much earlier (days before the delegates arrived) by harassing people who were making puppets and banners at the Convergence Center. Several unannounced visits were made by the police to the store front. Those at the Convergence Center reported that overhead, police helicopter flashed lights on the building fifty times a night.

During the four days of protests, I repeatedly witnessed a city long block of about 30 cop cars with their sirens turned on full blast barreling through the streets of downtown LA. When asked what that was all about, one bystander replied “psychological warfare.” Indeed, there were no real emergencies to warrant such behavior on the part of the LAPD and the sound was both deafening and nerve wracking.

I unfurled my banner in front of the officers gathered at the Metro intersection on chance that they might cut their eyes my direction. It read “ 'New' Economy Shaft$ Disabled.” “Disabled” was not spelled out -- I used the universal symbol, you know, the blue wheelchair. Making the symbol into a cartoon figure, I gave it an eye and a down-turned mouth. A big word cloud came from the mouth that said “Ouch!” I painted black skid marks emanating from the wheels. Maybe too cute, yes, but it stood out and got lots of attention. Photographers took photos of our group, co-marchers gave us the high fist salute, and many came over to say “we're glad you are here with us!”

Fortunately, my friends arrived not too late to make the 4:00 march. As we were wheeling with the other 7,000 demonstrators towards the Democratic Convention, a Green Party member confided to me “we feel safe when you are here with us” -- meaning the disability contingency. I quickly broke the news to him that the cops had no more respect for us than for him. If one has ever been to an ADAPT demo one would know that the police will jerk a disabled person out of their wheelchair, rip a respirator from one's mouth, refuse to honor our need for medications in jail -- hey mistreat us just like they do nondisabled people.

I told him, “I feel safer with you.” By “you” I meant with the 7,000 - 15,000 protesters composed of every age, ethnicity, gender, disability and race. Browns, blacks, Asians and whites were everywhere. There were 200 members from the Lawyers Guild monitoring the marches. In our mass there were striking members of the Screen Actors Guild. There were members from the International Longshore Union, Labor Party, and Oil Chemical Workers Union. The Green Party, International Socialist Organization and about 200 supporters of the Anarchists dressed all in Black joined the ranks. Many have made the point that this is the kind of unity that will make us truly strong but to experience all that energy in one place at that moment is worth recalling again and again - no matter that we already know these intellectual truths.

For me, that exhilaration was worth all the hell of just getting there.