Chants
The chanting was one of the most interesting parts of today’s anti-ICE protest to me, so I want to say more about it.
During the march from the starting point to the ICE office, the marchers were spread out over maybe half a block. For a while, I was near the front, and the person with the megaphone was near the back, so I could barely hear them.
But near the front, there was someone without a megaphone who launched into leading chants, in a loud, clear voice. They called out:
The people, united, will never be divided!
…and repeated that a couple more times, as most of the people near us joined in.
I have always felt awkward about joining in on chants, but this time it felt easy and mostly non-awkward to do—and I think that part of that was that most of the people near me were also participating. When I’m at this kind of event, I usually stay on the fringes of the crowd; that’s generally more comfortable for me in most ways, but I think it often means that only a few of the people near me are participating in the chants, so if I were to join in, I would be calling attention to myself. And when pockets of chanting have broken out in my vicinity in past events, I feel like they’ve usually quickly died down, so there’s always the “listen carefully to when everyone else stops so you don’t end up being the only one shouting something out” issue.
(Shyness, introversion, and social anxiety are all part of what’s going on there for me. (No advice, please.))
So it was neat and liberating to be near the person who was leading the chants; people all around me were joining in, which made it a lot easier for me to join in.
Anyway, so after a couple of repetitions of that line, the chant leader started doing only the first half:
The people, united—
…leaving it to the crowd to respond with the second half, which we did with gusto. (…I think everyone near me was saying “divided”; I said “defeated” once or twice, then realized that wasn’t what others were saying, and switched. Later, a different chant leader went with “defeated.”)
And after a few repetitions, the leader switched to different chants. For example:
I say people, you say power. People!
and we called out “Power!” and then the leader varied it:
I say Chicano, you say power. Chicano!
(“Power!”)
I say union, you say power. Union!
(“Power!”)
…and more. This one was easy to join in, it was catchy, and it provided a clear structure (with instructions built in!) but with variations to keep it from petering out after after a couple of repetitions.
After that, they went on to other chants:
Sí, se puede!
(We all chanted that for a while.)
Whose streets?
We called back “Our streets!”
Our neighbors [and other group names in other repetitions] are under attack! What do we do?
We called back “Stand up, fight back!” (This seemed to be a particular favorite of today’s protesters—they had been very quick with it even during the press conference.)
Show me what democracy looks like!
We called back “This is what democracy looks like!” Which I was a lot more comfortable with saying today than I was in the mostly-white-looking mostly-gray-haired crowds at the last two protests I attended.
Up, up with liberation!
Response: “Down, down with deportation!”
Ain’t no power like the power of the people, ’cause the power of the people don’t stop!
The intended response to this was apparently “Say what?” I hadn’t heard it before (though I gather it’s widely known) and I wasn’t quite clear on what to say, so I stayed out of that one.
I may be forgetting a few. (In particular, there was one in Spanish that I couldn’t follow.) In all, there were maybe ten different chants, and the chant leader shifted smoothly from each to the next, and that kept us going for the first half of the march (maybe ten minutes or so). And even though my throat was a little sore, it was really nice to be walking along, part of a group, chanting our solidarity with each other and with others who share our values.
Over the course of the march, people shifted around some, and by around halfway to our destination (about ten minutes in), I had drifted from near the front to near the middle, and the person with the megaphone shifted forward, and I found myself near that person instead of near the unamplified person who had been leading chants. I don’t know whether the unamplified person kept going after that or not; the person with the megaphone was the only one I heard leading chants after that.
And unfortunately, the megaphone person wasn’t quite as good at it. Partly that was because of the megaphone, which made their voice a little distorted and crackly. (I tried taking out my hearing aids, which often make things sound a little electronic and crackly, and the distortion got a little better, but not much.) The megaphone person called out several things that I couldn’t parse at all.
But also, they were more repetitive (for example, they did the people/power line several times, but kept it as “people” each time). And they paused for longer between chants. And I just didn’t get as good a vibe from them—but I don’t know whether that was tone of voice, or body language, or a further distancing effect of the megaphone, or entirely in my head, or what.
I think at one point they called out:
Hey hey! Ho ho! [pause as if trying to figure out what to say next] …ICE has got to go!
…which is missing a few syllables from what I think of as the usual scansion for that chant; they quickly gave up on that one.
And there was a
What do we want?
…but I didn’t know what in particular to say we wanted, and the crowd response was kind of jumbled. But they went on to
When do we want it?
and I joined in on the “Now!” on general principles.
I did like their call to “Put the heat on ICE!” but that was a one-time thing rather than a repeated chant.
At any rate, I continued to participate in some of the chants led by the megaphone person, and it was still good, just not as energizing as the other chant leader had been, at least not for me.
But even so, it was still more engaging and energizing (for me) than either of the other two protests I’ve attended lately (even though this one was only about a tenth the size of those others), and I think the chants had a lot to do with that.