I wanted to organize a lil' protest against BP and offshore drilling. It had been exactly one month since the oil spill began. One month of non-stop poison continuously flowing into the Gulf, making its way toward the Loop Current, and Florida Keys and beaches. In the history of history, this was undoubtedly the single worst thing we've done to our planet. It's like someone ventured to your parent's house in-the-sticks and pissed all over your mom, nonstop, for thirty straight days. Still, unless you're Aquaman, could you really do anything other than watch idly?
Of course you could do something. You don't have to be Che Guevera to express yourself. Just get off your ass and actually do something. This is the recipe: First, gather as many artists as we could can. Get supplies. Brainstorm. Make signs. This in itself is healthy. Creative venting is cathartic and gathering for a cause is always inspiring. Next, come up with an idea. Ours was easy: let's wear black hefty bags, carry our freaking signs, march on down to the busiest BP, and post up. But first, let's spread the word, gather the tribe, there's music in the masses. After a Facebook update, a tweet, a few reposts and retweets, phone calls, emails, you'll have a crew, like we did, just make sure someone has a good camera for still shots and video.
We stood outside the BP on NE 10th Street and Biscayne Boulevard in downtown Miami
for two hours. No yelling, megaphones, or chants. Just a silent
protest, a gesture of discontent and unity.
Thousands of cars drove by, many of them beeping in fleeting solidarity,
each beep of their horn sounding more like BP, BP as time went on. Onomatopoetic justice. Did the cops come? Yeah. They asked how long we'd
be there, wanted to know our plan, and "suggested" the next time we do
it we go by the special event station to get a "suggested" permit. Were
some people upset? A couple. Did it rain? It rained like it does in
Miami during the summer, and it felt great.
The whole experience felt great. We took tons of pictures. The goal was
not to disrupt the ebb and flow of traffic, or waste anyone's valuable
time. The goal was to heighten public awareness of the disaster in the
Gulf and how it could affect our quality of life in Miami. Also, how
this pertains to the larger social issue of offshore drilling, and the
larger issue of corporate power.
Sure, the opposing viewpoint may be that our demonstration in the end
might have only hurt small local business and not the corporate entity
behind the logo. In our case, we did indeed stand outside a BP owned by a
small-business proprietor and not the corporation, but so what? What's
a little collateral damage? After all, it was still a BP, and BP is
the one behind this mess.
We made our point. We had our images and we left. But that was just the
beginning. You see, in 2010, you can be the media you want to be. So
that night we went back to our social networking sites and after a few
Facebook posts and re-posts, we brewed the pot, stirred the gravy, and had
created our own story. The next day our local NBC station contacted us
for an interview. When asked how they found out about what we did, the
reporter said Facebook. The next night we we're on the eleven o'clock
news, in a market with 7 million people. We did it our way, and so can
you.
J.J. Colagrande is the author of Headz, a novel. He is
currently an adjunct professor at Miami-Dade College and Barry
University.
