The Hug - Sister Dragonfly’s “I would rather hug you than hate you” embrace of Sgt. Michael Wood of the Ferguson, Missouri police department has been viewed by 6.4 million people here on this page. What is this all about? Both Dragonfly and the officer are role-players in a tense confrontation, they have violent choices easily available to them, but they chose to hug. In recent years, we have experienced an intense period of American law enforcement violence, from Shock and Awe to Abu Ghraib to Blackwater USA to the violent suppression of the Occupy movement, vigilantism on our borders, surveillance of millions, and the on-going shootings of unarmed young black men. What if we continued to come up with piercings of the walls, riot-lines, mine-fields, security zones. What if ordinary people continued to make contact despite all the laws and hardware of official fear? What if there were more and more Dragonfly hugs? Every day? Every hour? Warm crowds fondly pulling soldiers and cops toward a soulful body and away from guns? State and corporate violence needs a distancing by design. But a dance party of laughing hip-gyrating folks would make the most fearful security guard tap his foot. Is it possible to create invasions by unarmed peaceful dancers, buskers and clowns, doo-wop harmonizers, somersaulters, and actors with method training in love scenes. Would a line of riot police be disarmed? I love New York because so many times I have spirited conversations with strangers. But sometimes in the subway everyone is on their iPhone, just dazed in digital consumerism. And then a singing group from, say, Mexico will enter in their sequined jackets and cowboy hats and strum their guitars. I always give them coins or a buck if I have it. But lots of people don’t look up. On the other hand, here is the best chance to break into unsupervised affection. I have seen a hug of a singer who just sang a heartfelt golden oldie, that lifted up a person’s day. Then there are the incessant recordings on the intercom, “It is against the law to ask for money on the trains. Please help us keep an orderly subway.” Consumerism from one angle, and official threats from the other – daring us against contact. This is public space, the base-line of community is here, our basic ability to talk to each other, to smile or even touch. And, let it be said, social change always involves using such a commons as a stage, where we change each other in public. If we keep this one hug going, the dream of a million hugs lives on.
Posted on: Tue, 28 Oct 2014 12:50:09 +0000
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