Faces in the Crowd at Last Night's #BlackLivesMatterFriday Protest

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Febe

I met Febe, a 22-year old North Seattle Community College student, as demonstrators began marching downtown after briefly blocking the entrances of The Comet, Lost Lake, and Caffe Vita on Capitol Hill. She said those businesses had been chosen because their owners had been calling for increased police presence around their bars and cafes and complaining about East African youth in the area.

"They're trying to kick East Africans out of the neighborhood, targeting black people because of fear," she said. "I'm East African, I hang out on Capitol Hill, and I'm not causing a problem." (She said her father came to the US after fleeing civil war in Ethiopia and winding up in a refugee camp in Sudan.) "It's not just Ferguson or Compton that's the problem," she said. "A lot of people don't know that over 100 Seattle police officers went to court, begging them to let them use excessive force." Febe said she's disheartened by gentrification as well: "South Seattle used to be full of beautiful black people—not anymore."

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Daniel Casaletto

Daniel Casaletto moved to Seattle from New York City 11 years ago and works as a bartender, an actor, and a model (including, he notes, an underwear model). He hasn't been involved in much political activity before the Michael Brown protests. "I'm pretty cynical," he said, "but this is straight-up life and death for black males. I'm so angry. I don't know what to do but this. I don't want to hurt anybody or destroy anything—but I'm furious."

He said that because street demonstrations were new to him, he asked a police officer nearby for advice about how to avoid being arrested or pepper-sprayed. The answer? "'Get the hell out of Seattle,'" he said the officer said. "This is how African Americans get treated by police. I live here! I live a mile from here! I'm an American citizen and I don't want to get shot. It's a minor request, really."

Casaletto said he wants all police officers to wear body cameras—but it wasn't something he'd given much thought to before Ferguson and Mike Brown. "I used to think that body cams and Go-Pros were just cool for action sports," he said. "But now I want body cams on every officer so the world can see how they mistreat black people, especially black men. It's terrible. It's dehumanizing."

He said he'd been arguing earlier with some anarchists at the protest. "For me and my little brothers, it's life or death—I have little nephews, too. I said, 'for you, maybe it's ideological, high-minded stuff. But for me, it's death.' A cop could shoot me and go home and have dinner. His career would be fine, but my life is done."

I asked if he had anything to add. "Black men cry, too," he said, and turned away for a moment.

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Melina Frazier

Melina Frazier was pacing around in the drizzle on 10th and Pike while demonstrators blocked the intersection. A land surveyor by profession, she was there, in her words, to "protest for peace and no violence from the cops." Did she think that, after several days of protests, the demonstrators were being heard?

"I think we're being heard," she answered. "This is the most people we've had out here, even in this weather. We're not being violent, burning stuff, flipping cars." She said that she'd been depressed this Thanksgiving season, partly because of the grand jury's decision to not indict Darren Wilson, but also because her sister had died of cancer and her brother had recently received a 65-year prison sentence.

Frazier said she'd been holed up in her apartment lately and had even occasionally felt suicidal. "But this is the first time that I've felt energized," she said, gesturing to the demonstration. "My sister would want me out here—she used to come out to do stuff like this."

"I like people," she said. "Black, white—I'm gay and a lot of my girlfriends are white. I'm just for peace."

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Eleanor Smith

Eleanor Smith and her high-school friends drove down from Maple Leaf for the Westlake demonstrations. They said they were there to protest for "equality" and "demilitarization of the police force."

"That guy [police officer Darren Wilson] killed a kid with no repercussions," said high-school sophomore J. Peterson. "It pisses me off."

"The justice system is still racially biased," said their friend Ross Pearson. "In a country that believes itself to be free and equal, that's unacceptable." Pearson said he was there earlier in the day, among the protesters who were trying to disrupt the Black Friday shopping at Westlake mall. "People in Ferguson don't have the luxury of going on with business as usual," he said. "People here can say 'oh, it's too bad what happened in Ferguson, but now I'm going to do my Black Friday shopping.'"

The group said that the mall protest was "interesting." Some people were complaining, Pearson said, and claimed they had a right to shop. "Well, if you have a right to shop, we have a right to protest your shopping," he said.

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Ross Pearson, Eleanor Smith, and J. Peterson of Maple Leaf

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Laura

One 22 year-old demonstrator who wanted to remain anonymous said: "I'm disgusted at this point with people not choosing a side—but when they do nothing, they're choosing a side. Americans are just so ignorant of what's happening in their country that they can just smile and take photos of a protest and keep shopping."

S/he said s/he has been involved in political protest before, but had—like me—met a lot of people over the past few days who'd been moved to action for the first time in their lives by the situation in Ferguson. "It's just a climax of things added up," s/he said. "It's not just Mike Brown... and it's harder and harder for people to say, 'the law is just doing what it's supposed to do,' and harder and harder to believe the courts and the police are any kind of justice at all."

Laura, another demonstrator who was nearby, put it most succinctly: "I'm here because I'm saying enough is enough."

More faces in the crowd at the Ferguson marches over here.