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Michele Darr - Live from the frontline
fight was rooted in my experience as a civilian and Mother living in Kuwait and Iraq in 1990 and enduring the horror and trauma of the US-sponsored war I witnessed first hand. There are almost no words to explain how that changed me and my perspective on my country of birth, especially when confronted by a dominant narrative that directly contradicted my lived experience and sociopathic power brokers that sought to silence my witness. Faced with the choice levied by my own Embassy and State Department to shut up and go home with my family intact or risk criminal charges should I choose to stay and fight back with the power of witness and media, my 20 year old self chose to take 9 family members and head back to the U.S. With a heart heavy from grief and guilt from not having what I perceived to be the courage to stay in Iraq and face the imperial demons head on, I spent the next 10 years battling major depression and suicidal tendencies stemming from PTSD, a battle I very nearly didn’t survive until 9-11, when I finally arose from the ashes of my life and made a decision to devote what remained to the arduous work of activism. My efforts have since largely been focused on the anti-war movement, Occupy Wall Street and since 2015, Black Lives Matter. The journey has led me to put my body and life on the line numerous times as a human shield, in 24-7 vigils, hunger strikes, countless protests and even a 4,500 mile trek for Peace across the US in 2007 on my bicycle with my infant twins and 11 year old daughter.
REVOLUTIONARY Y ROAD
WORDS BY | MICHELE DARR
ou’ve seen them in the news and in the streets. The unquiet ones, the unabashed ones, the unruly ones, the ones who are not satisfied to remain silent and accept status quo answers to life and death questions. Protesters and activists are simultaneously on the front lines and at the heart of the struggle to achieve a sense of justice, a sense of righteousness, and a sense that, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, we still have agency over our bodies and the quality of our lives.
They are out there on every knowable front of resistance to racism, tyranny, oppression, injustice, inequality and basically anything that threatens people, the planet and Life itself. We have covered and live-streamed their protests, most notably, the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Portland, Salem, Corvallis, Eugene and Seattle. We have found all to be hubs for an impressive network of individuals, groups and organizations who don’t just gather to protest, they arrive by the thousands prepared to provide for every conceivable human need that might arise including free food, water, shelter, medical and emergency medical, and more. Against a backdrop of chanting, music and percussionists keeping the heartbeat of the movement, artists and creatives have flocked and covered a broad swath of available surfaces in luminous, soulful protest art such as we saw at the CHAZ/ CHOP barricades in Seattle and at and around the JusticeCenter and Federal Courthouse in downtown Portland and Eugene. As someone who has spent the better part of 2 decades as a foot soldier, organizer, journalist and reporter, I’ve found that behind every person that puts life and limb on the line for the betterment of humanity, there is often a story or watershed moment in their lives that changed everything. My overwhelming determination to join the 24
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