Report Back
Today’s event was an awesome day of resistance. At the Little Village Environmental Justice Oorganization event, 35 of us met at the glass towers. We marched on to Channel 7 street-view news studios, with ~6 bike cops in tow, and we stayed there making lots of noise and messaged chants for 30 or 40 minutes. They did their best to ignore us, ie, sports caster, Mark Giangreco looked pissed off, but with some small smiling acknowledgments from weather guy, Jerry Taft, until they closed the blinds on us. We then went to Channel 2 to do more of the same, ~20 minutes.
We then went back to the bean and met up with more activists from No Games Chicago, Money For Clinics, Southsiders Together Organizing for Power folks and others from the Coalition to Protect Public Housing, like Willie “JR” Fleming, also of the Hip-hop Congress. Now there were about 55 of us. We marched on to the Art Institute. We started off towards the main entrance. The police had also started to arrive in numbers too. JR pointed out that the entrance to the IOC/Oprah event would be in the back, so we did an about face and headed to Columbus Drive. We got there and the police would not let us cross. Several of us clearly observing the cross walk light and well with in the Law called their bluff and crossed any way, saying “We will follow lawful orders.” After a few minutes of them holding back our comrades, they pointed out that it was now ok to cross again, and they did so, ignoring the police’s illegal order and thus calling their bluff. They did not arrest anyone. We arrived to the spot directly across the street from the Columbus Drive entrance where there was a horde of media. We set up shop there, content enough with this positioning. Apparently the police did not want us within view of the IOC or the media, what a surprise. It warmed my heart greatly to see this group stand up for their rights. A cop approached to let us know that so long as we stay here and not cross that they would be OK with that, that the IOC has a permitted the entire block, that side of the street. (Freaking arrogance, ugggh!). Ok, so we carried on a loud , well-messaged protest. It was quite exhilerating. A few folks went quietly a block over and across the street, but ended up in a sort of pissing match with the police and were eventually threatened with arrest if they didn’t go back. An Art Institute student magazine (FNEWSMAGAZINE.com) also came out to interview us, as well as Channel 7 was the only one of the herd of media to cross the street for interviews with us. Many many black SUVs and a few limos came in one by one to deliver IOC’s, etc. They all got a loud message.
When it looked like IOC’s were done arriving, we began to pack up and leave, when finally Oprah shows up. Our folks from 1/2 a block already leaving all came back to party with her. She stayed out side talking to the media for at least 15~20 minutes, all the while having to hear and see us in the background. Chanting, ie: “Oprah, can’t you see, we don’t want the IOC”, etc. Finally, she went in, so then we finally left. OH, ya, previously, Coco Taylor also got similar greetings. I hope I did not miss too much.
Media Coverage
We did OK enough in getting some air time… some of these are prety funny. ie while Oprah is trying to talk to media, you can here us clealy chanting “Hey Oprah, cant you see, we don’t want the IOC”.. fun stuff…
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Sunday anti-IOC TV media coverage:
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ABC ch7
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/channel?section=news/local&id=5755445
We got 23 sec’s of a 3 min report. Our protest at 2:36 of 2:59
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CBS ch2
http://cbs2chicago.com/local/chicago.2016.bid.2.977824.html
10 sec of 2:40
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Ch 5 NBC
Did anyone see it, I skimed the text here and not find any?
http://www.nbcchicago.com/sports/more/ioc-dinner-040609.html
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WGN ch 9
http://www.wgntv.com/wgn_news
we got only 9 sec’s of video but the during the extensive Oprah interview, you hear the protesters real good. “Hey Oprah, cant you see, we don’t want the IOC”
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FOX, ch 32 ch3
http://www.myfoxchicago.com/
They completely don’t cover us, and you only hear us for 3-4 sec’s during Oprah’s interview.
submitted by Mike d
