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San Francisco Chronicle Friday, March 21st, 2003
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Hunters Point protest small but spirited Patricia Yollin Barely 25 marchers make anti-war point It was the most intimate of protests in the most forgotten of neighborhoods. And crowd count was never an issue. Armed with tattered banners and a drooping life-size puppet, 25 antiwar demonstrators marched a mile and a half through San Francisco's Hunters Point on Thursday morning, from one power plant to another. They walked past auto dismantlers and truck rental outfits, past the big post office on Evans and India Basin Industrial Park, past lives stuffed into the shopping carts of Third Street. "We just walked by a whole bunch of people who are down and out," said Glen Park resident Emile Brock, 22. "Where's the war against that?" The march was organized by Literacy for Environmental Justice and by Greenaction. The starting point was a strip of sidewalk between the PG&E Hunters Point Power Plant and Hunters Point housing project.
There were 10 San Francisco police officers looking on -- a record for an Literacy for Environmental Justice march, said director Dana Lanza. "I will take care of you," Sgt. Howard Weathersby told the group in a cordial sendoff that sounded as if he were an attentive waiter at a fancy restaurant. A banner summed up the prevailing sentiment: "No Bloody Oil Wars for Dirty Energy." In 1991, Susan Boshoven protested the first gulf war. "Sometimes I get a feeling of futility," said Boshoven, 42, of the Portola District. "But what can you do?" Most likely the Bay Area's tiniest protest, the procession up Third Street could easily have been seen as an exercise in futility. But it wasn't. For Leandrew Rigmaden, 23, of Daly City, it was educational. "I was born and raised in the Bayview and Hunters Point," he said. "These protests are a way for people to learn." For Glen Park resident Parin Shah, 33, the protest helped validate the views of those who didn't come -- people like his parents, Indian immigrants opposed to the war in Iraq but afraid to speak out. "Are protests useful? As a policy tool, no. As something vicarious, yes. It allows people to feel OK with their beliefs," Shah said.
For Steve Moss, the protest was cathartic. "I actually came to mourn," said Moss, 42, of Potrero Hill. "And I came for my 2-year-old daughter, who had a rough night. She knows her mom and dad are very upset and jittery." For Mishwa Lee, the protest hit close to home. "This is my neighborhood," said Lee, 54. It wasn't Ingrid Seyer-Ochi's neighborhood, but she came to Hunters Point, she said, because of its own weapons of mass destruction: power plants and toxic sites possibly linked to high rates of heart disease and asthma. Her walking companion lugged a big, bedraggled puppet. People thought its yellowness symbolized solar energy, but no one was really sure. "I think protests should be clear about what's being protested," said Seyer- Ochi, 36, of Oakland. "I'm just not into puppets. Also, they're really heavy." Forty-five minutes after it began, the protest concluded: the Potrero Hill power plant was the end of the line. ©2003 San Francisco Examiner |
