It Wasn’t Supposed to Be a Pep Rally
Joseph “Jojo” Santiago had a lot to get off his chest when Random Lengths News reached out to him following the unity march on June 6.
The march was headlined by District 15 City Councilman Joe Buscaino, the Los Angeles Police Department, and the local chapter of the NAACP.
Random Lengths News first learned of this march four days prior, which was billed as a unity protest march. The LAPD Harbor Division was supposed to be marching with them. A couple days later, the word “protest” was dropped altogether.
Santiago is a Pedro boy, through and through. He attended Dodson Middle School and graduated from San Pedro High School. He is now attending Los Angeles Harbor College. He said he had no prior organizing experience before the George Floyd demonstrations.
Up until a few weeks ago, Santiago had participated in several protests in other parts of Los Angeles, including a recent one in Palos Verdes, inspired by a Minneapolis man whose life seeped out of him as a police officer kneeled on the man’s neck. Floyd’s cry for his deceased mother before a very public death questioned whether black lives do matter. For Santiago, it was at this moment he sought to see his hometown stand up for justice.
“I just wanted to do something in my own city to show that we are going to take a stand,” Santiago said.
Santiago filmed a few videos of the demonstrations he had attended and sent them to his mentor along with a text message explaining he wanted to do something in San Pedro. He explained that initially he only had a vague idea of what he wanted to do.
Santiago explained that Dr. Cheyenne Bryant, the president of the San Pedro/Wilmington chapter of the NAACP, had a clearer idea of how to bring this vague idea into fruition.
Santiago said it could have been as simple as a group of his compatriots standing in one place in protest of police brutality and advocating the defunding of the police departments. He said he would have been happy with that outcome. Instead, he got more than he bargained for.
“She said she will see if she could get the NAACP to back us and that in the meantime for us to keep her in the loop,” Santiago said. “From then on, she just took charge and did a lot of things that I definitely would not have been able to do on my own.”
As the march quickly started to look like it was going to become a reality, Santiago learned that the Harbor Division of the LAPD was going to join the march.
Santiago recounted George Floyd demonstrations in which he participated elsewhere in the city — demonstrations in which protesters squared off with police officers clad in riot gear yelling and screaming at the officers to join their side, as if they could be persuaded to
do something other than what they were sworn to do.
Santiago’s comment was reminiscent of a scene recounted by Daily Breeze reporter Donna Littlejohn of the aftermath of an incident in which a march organizer asked (or perhaps demanded) that a police officer who was walking and taking a video during the nearly nine-minute moment of silence in Floyd’s memory to take a knee with the rest of the marchers.
“The officer replied, ‘Thank you for the invitation’ and walked on, continuing to video the event,” Littlejohn wrote.
Santiago admitted that his peers, ahead of the march, questioned the wisdom of including the LAPD in this unity march.
“I stuck to my guns and went forward with it thinking that this march can be a guinea pig to see if the LAPD would pick a side,” Santiago said.
The 22-year-old was not aware Chief Michel Moore would be participating in the march. He also was not aware that Moore had controversially relayed his honest feelings that looters were equally responsible for George Floyd’s death
When the day of the march finally came, Santiago said things didn’t feel right.
“It didn’t feel genuine,” Santiago said. “The shirts that were put out there, it had nothing to do with what I was out there for. The front of the shirt read NAACP and the back of it read LAPD.”
“There was nothing about Black Lives Matter or George Floyd,” Santiago said. “I told them no, why would I want one?”
For Bryant, the unity march was “mission accomplished.” That is, of course, if the mission was to demonstrate unity and agreement in San Pedro that Floyd’s death was wrong and a few policing changes needed to be made.
“It was an absolute success; amazing, heartfelt and peaceful,” Bryant said. “To see the entire community, law enforcement, elected officials and community organizations come together to protest the same cause, share the same pain and march is the epitome of love and unity.”
When she was asked how she thinks the police should reform, she said that the police need to involve black organizations when creating and deciding for the community.
“The NAACP knows the needs of our community and should be directly involved in structuring and allocating resources, style of policing and the implementation of culturally-competent and anti-racial training,” she said.
Critical voices of the current policing paradigm are advocating a reimagining of policing so that communities are less reliant on public servants with guns in exchange for public servants with expertise. These people would have expertise in assisting the homeless, expertise in mental health, expertise in dealing with domestic violence and addressing drug addiction. These critical voices are demanding that we reimagine policing so that we all can breathe.