As if a pandemic wasn’t enough, we entered June with riots and looting. After pillaging Oakland and San Francisco, the thugs came north and East to Walnut Creek. We’re a nice little town with a trendy shopping area made up of lots of little boutiques and restaurants as well as some of the major national shopping chains. Apparently, we’re also a good target for looting. I hadn’t really been listening to the news when my town was descended upon by these thugs on May 31st. That morning, I got up as usual and celebrated the Pentecost with an inspiring service online by the Washington National Cathedral. A wonderful sermon by the Presiding Bishop and beautiful music by the artists who perform at the Cathedral. When the service ended, I pulled myself together and decided to go for a 5-mile run. My running has been a struggle lately as I don’t feel as motivated to increase mileage given that there’s nothing to train for, and I only have 3 real routes I can take within walking distance of the apartment (one being a loop that I run one direction, and then the reverse the next time I go). I pushed through and even though my pace was not up to my usual standards, I made it 5 miles. As I did my cooldown, I passed by a restaurant that was boarding up a window. I thought it strange and wondered if the glass had been broken. I didn’t give it another thought. Given that I wasn’t wearing a mask at the time (I don’t wear one to run), I walked out into the street and decided not to ask the workers about it.
My family Zoom call came around as scheduled and we talked about the terrible devesting riots and looting in Minneapolis that were spilling over into the surrounding areas. I casually stated that we were having protests and riots in Oakland and San Francisco, but my sleepy little town (very sleepy with all the shops and restaurants still closed) wasn’t impacted by what was going on in the larger cities. How wrong I was. . .
After the call, I finished setting up my Nextdoor.com profile and was greeted by several postings about the fact that Walnut Creek was trending on Twitter. There were incendiary posts saying that we would be targeted by the protesters (and by association, the looters). I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I quickly went to Twitter and FaceBook, looking for posts by the Town and local Police. Sure enough, the town was readying for looting. A protest was to have happened at 15:00 and by the time I was going through these feeds it was well after 16:30. I had run early enough that I wasn’t aware that many shops and restaurants were boarding up their windows, not just the one I saw earlier in the day. My route today was along a footpath that is well away from the downtown area, so I didn’t actually go through the parts of town that were preparing for looting.
While reading and becoming more horrified by the minute, the apartment fire alarms went off. This was most likely caused by someone burning their dinner, but my heart leapt at the thought of leaving the building. As the alarms continued, I reluctantly grabbed my car keys, purse, shoes and a mask, and made my way out the fire exit. The fire department responded quickly, and there wasn’t a fire – both of these made me feel more comfortable. If the fire department came so quickly, it meant they weren’t otherwise occupied. Of course, not having a fire in the building is always a good thing too.
As the early evening passed, one of my coworkers from Minnesota texted me, offering her guest room. She lives about a 20-minute drive from me. While the invitation was tempting, I was actually more worried about driving through town. A bit later, I saw a Tweet saying we’re now under a curfew. From 18:00 to 5:00, every day until June 8th – that’s not comforting when it’s such a long period of time (both in hours and in days). That means that they’re really worried. Then, I got an emergency text, robo-call and email from Blue Shield – they have closed our Oakland office. My boss texted later to check in on me, as the news started to spread within California about where the looters had gone next. She told me that the office closed because two federal officers had been shot across the street from our Headquarters building (there’s a federal building near by).
The whole experience has been a bit surreal. I guess the drawback of not having TV is that I don’t get real-time updates on what’s happening. Hearing helicopters each evening and the sound of sirens leads me to check various social media feeds for updates, but it means that I’m also subject to the various interpretations or spin that individuals choose to give. I fully support the protests, but I do not support the looting and crowds of people deciding to leave our little civic park and head up onto the highway to face down cars traveling at 75 or 80 mph. I don’t know what point they are trying to make in challenging those unlucky enough to be driving somewhere.
I was going to write a reflection on the 3rd month of the quarantine, but the last week or so of this month has been at the forefront of my mind. I was so looking forward to the gradual easing of the restrictions and maybe some ability to socialize and get out into the community. Instead, I feel like we were regressing – in so many ways, not just in response to the Shelter in Place orders. I won’t go down the political path here, but the pictures, videos and other reports on-line made one thing abundantly clear – the killing of a black man by Minneapolis Police have set off a wave of angry protests across the US that have people ignoring the unseen killer in our midst. Passions are running high as protesters spill into the streets – to hell with social distancing and wearing face masks. My fear is that in two weeks’ time, we will see the outcome of this passion, including a massive uptick in cases of COVID19 and a possible return of measures to stem its spread.
And so, we enter the 4th month, with some re-openings, but a fear of what these past few weeks will bring, both in the battle against this horrible virus and in the political spectrum as we try to come to terms with the systemic racism in our midst.
