BLOOD ON TRUMP
Protest meets performance art on the streets of New York
It’s Labor Day in Central Park, and the shirtless muscle gays, basic sundress bitches, and stroller families are OUT in full force—picnicking on the grass, roller blading in tandem, glistening bodies basking in the golden sun. After a violent summer of discontent, the winds are shifting as the scorched earth cools off and New York City cautiously buzzes back to life after lockdown. It feels groovy in the park—a jazz musician named Ralph playing the saxophone under a tree nods hello, and we chat about the riots in California, where he’s from. “Hey baby-” he calls out to me, as I trot off to a climate protest nearby. “When can I see you again?”
The last time I was in Central Park was over a month ago, on the nightmarish night my friend Stickers was kidnapped by cops at a march protesting the shutdown of New York’s autonomous zone. Now I’ve returned for something very different: a climate action by Extinction Rebellion (XR)—an environmental activist group known for pulling performance art-like stunts all over the world, including a recent protest rave outside Buckingham Palace.
XR was founded in May 2018 in the UK, and launched in the United States later that year. This protest in New York—a collaboration with the activist groups Defend Democracy Brazil and Refuse Fascism—will climax with a secret, highly illegal stunt that I’m only privy to because I’m staying at the house of one of XR NYC’s organizers, M. (We met at another protest, and collaborated on an eco-rave called Healing Garden last month.) Before that stunt, a series of rituals and performances will unfold at Central Park’s Bethesda Terrace—a bi-level plaza that is now filled with protestors carrying signs and a burning tree stump next to blood-smeared dollar bills.
To kick things off, XR’s Red Rebels, a performing troupe of chalk-faced dancers swathed in red cloaks, walks barefoot down a stone staircase and towards an angel-winged fountain in the middle of the terrace. (Fun fact: the fountain was built in 1859 to commemorate New York’s new freshwater system at the end of a devastating cholera epidemic.) They wade into the fountain, gesturing slowly like butoh dancers.
As if on cue, the triumphant trumpet prattles of the jazz standard “I Got the World on a String” drifts through the air from a nearby busker’s loudspeaker, synchronized to their every move. This confluence of street music and protest performances becomes one of the most delightful things that keeps happening all day.
XR, which espouses “non-violent direct action to address climate emergency,” has four demands tackling everything from greenhouse gases to direct democracy. The theme of its climate actions in the US this year is the intersection of climate and racial justice, and how ecological disasters disproportionately affect people of color. Yet the group has often been criticized for its lack of racial diversity, and looking around the protest, I can't help but notice that the vast majority of attendees appear to be white.
M, who is a woman of color, tells me that XR is acutely aware of this diversity issue. She also tells me that pressing climate issues in lower-income neighborhoods can be difficult when people often have more pressing concerns. “Sometimes when I try to talk to people in my neighborhood about carbon emissions, they're like, ‘I'm just trying not to get shot on the way to school,’” she says.
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After performing a few more rituals involving singing and dancing in a circle and tying ribbons on a tree, the protestors get ready to march. As they cross the Great Lawn of Central Park, many New Yorkers look up from their picnicks to cheer and applaud, but a few white families are offended by a banner declaring “THE SYSTEM IS FUCKED.” “There are children around!” they huff. Respectability politics is a bitch.
As the protestors approaches Columbus Circle, the chosen site of their impending Big Stunt, an NYPD van begins to tail along, and suddenly there are cop cars everywhere lining the streets, as if they've picked up that shit is about to go down. Meanwhile, a few activists attempt to hold up traffic, but impatient New Yorkers are NOT HAVING IT. A man leaps out of his car. “I am a nurse, but enough is enough!!!” he screams, “People got shit to do!” As cars surge towards them, the activists quickly move out of the way. The moment feels like a parable of post-lockdown New York.
In this tense moment, the concentration of cops and agitated crowd makes me wonder if the Big Stunt will really get pulled off. Then I turn my head and realize it's already started: three activists in climbing gear are scaling the giant globe sculpture outside the gilded Trump Hotel across Central Park. As I run towards the action, a swinging jazz band in front of the globe begins to play, the busking musicians exchanging bemused glances as a gawking crowd of onlookers gathers.
Once the climbers reach the top, they unfurl a sign that says “CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW" and theatrically dump fake blood all over the stainless steel globe. The blood splatters across the sculpture, dripping down Africa. The red-cloaked performers assemble below, stretching their arms out as if receiving the Messiah. Dozens of police encircle the area with steel barricades, crossing their arms and scowling with displeasure.
After fifteen minutes, the stunt is over and the climbers begin to dismount. They scramble down the globe into the awaiting arms of the police, who immediately arrest and lead them into NYPD vans. The protestors chant, “We see you, we love you! You guys are heroes for humanities and the planet!” Meanwhile, two women sitting at the Trump Hotel applaud loudly for the cops. “THANK YOU NYPD FOR DOING YOUR JOB!” they shout.
Was this protest effective, or just entertaining? I'm not sure. The playful theatrics and rituals were a marked contrast to the anarchic violence and explosive cop confrontations I witnessed in DC and other protests across the country. As the narrative of “outside agitators" and “violent riots" is weaponized by both sides in the lead-up to the November election, XR's blood-spilling protest presented another option for captivating the public's attention: performance art.
Bystanders in New York seemed mostly tickled by the pomp and pageantry, but many also looked indifferent or even impatient. Reflecting a challenge faced by activists across the country, sustaining the revolutionary energy that exploded from the streets in the wake of Floyd will prove difficult as the weather cools, and the simple joys of returning to normal life, like picnicking in the park, tug at the short attention spans of the public.
XR's racial politics also leave a lot of work left to be done, but what's obvious is that the climbers, who were all white, used their privilege to pull off an illegal stunt that ultimately made headlines in the Daily Mail, New York Post, and other gossipy rags. (Did Trump catch wind of it, and did he care?) As the 60s civil rights activist told me in DC, what feels different about this moment is how many young white people are stepping up to the cops—in New York, Portland, and beyond.
Let's hope the protest energy that will inevitably dissipate in the winter will rebloom in the spring. As the climate activists put it: nature regenerates according to the seasons, and so can a revolution.