This project is called Portraits for Protest. I wanted to take powerful and beautiful portraits of specific protesters from all walks of life in order to add real faces to the BLM movement. This includes Black men and women, Black Trans, Asian, Latino and Palestinian people. I’m hoping that by doing this, I can get people who are observing the sea of protesters to feel connected and empowered to participate. Along with the photos, I conducted short written interviews that speak to the individual asks of the movement and why people are involved.
1. Who are you?
Dylan Saba. I work as an eviction defense attorney representing low income New Yorkers in housing court. I grew up in Oakland, CA but I’ve lived all over. I’m Palestinian on my father’s side and Ashkenazi on my mother’s side. But really mostly who I am is a combination of my friends and various other inspirations. Maybe there’s a little ball of intuition buried under all the layers of reference driving the ship. I’m not really sure. Good question.
2. Is this your first time protesting?
No. The first protest I remember going to was an action against the Afghanistan war sometime in late 2001 when I was 8 years old. My mom took me. I remember some minor ridicule from the East Coast family, us crazy hippies out West, I remember the phrase “Barbara Lee speaks for me” (our Congressional representative and the lone vote against the war), and I remember marching in the streets of San Francisco. Love my mom for that. I’ve been protesting pretty consistently since then. The Iraq War in 2003 and 2004; US support for Israeli bombings of Gaza in 2009, 2012, and 2014; Occupy Wall Street in 2011, the first Black Lives Matter movement in 2014; and various other smaller actions.
3. What led you to take direct action for the Black Lives Matter movement? Or What led you to organize your own protest?
I didn’t organize any of the protests but I participated pretty consistently from the first rally at Barclay’s. I view my participation as answering a call for solidarity. The call came from Black people, organized and unorganized, who have had enough of the violent repression, systemic deprivation, and racism that form an essential character of this country. “If we don’t get it, shut it down”. It’s my duty to answer calls like this. We live in a Fucked World, and the main, most thorny problems are not discrete from one another. Racism is any enemy of justice. It’s our duty to fight it.
4. Was there a moment that changed your perspective on racial inequality in America and if so can you describe that?
Not one moment, no. I was radicalized, so to speak, through the case of Palestine. I think it’s probably common that an understanding of the world begins with an inquiry into oneself. But just as Palestine is a particular historical situation, it’s also quite a potent metaphor. Understanding what happened in Palestine and what is happening in Palestine brought me to a conceptual understanding of race, of indignity, of colonialism, of settler-colonialism, of mass incarceration, and not least of all of the sociopolitical structures that perpetuate and justify the violence inherent in these processes.
Applying those concepts to the particular historical situation of slavery and its legacy in the United States and the Americas was natural and part of the general political awakening that I underwent around the time I entered college. I organized and I read. I read more. Those student activists fighting for racial equality showed solidarity with the Palestinian liberation movement. We reciprocated. There was a shared understanding that the system we were up against, racial capitalism, American imperialism, and colonialism, were operating in tandem.
In 2014, at the height of the first BLM movement and after a summer of Israeli bombing of Gaza, Students for Justice in Palestine (the student group I was organizing with) hosted a national conference: Beyond Solidarity: Resisting Racism and Colonialism from the U.S. to Palestine. That was really cool.
5. What makes BLM protest today feel different than previous movements we’ve seen or studied?
What has struck me most about this movement is its size and duration. We’re seeing marches not only across the country, but across the globe. And this has gone on for over a month. In total it may be the single largest mass mobilization in American history. It’s a bit too early to determine the movement’s outcome, but the sheer size is stunning and at the very least indicative of a cultural shift on the issue of race.
6. What do you see as the demands of the movement?
That depends on what constitutes “the movement.” In the broadest sense, I see the movement as demanding justice and an end to racism and racist violence. In the narrow sense, the dominant forces within the movement are demanding that police departments across the nation are defunded. The unifying demand is a demand for power. It might not even make sense to think of it as a demand. Perhaps the movement isn’t demanding anything and is instead a movement to take power. What’s clear is where the power is now – it’s in the hands of the state, those with property, and a small group of extremely wealthy, extremely white individuals who control the economy and benefit from racial division and exploitation of the masses.
7. What do you think is next for the movement and how would you like to see it evolve?
I don’t know. I’m not sure it’s for me to say, really. What I would like to see is people joining organizations. Organizations are what sustain political action over a long term. And I think we all recognize that this is a long fight.
8. What do you say to people that are witnessing but maybe feel distant or not involved in the movement?
That ain’t it, chief.
9. Is there anything else you want to speak on regarding the movement?
All power to the people.
