OP-ED: I Found The Cutest Little Riot Downtown That You Just Have to Check Out
Professor Phillip Grant
Mostly, I’m at a loss for words and I stare at them baffled for what feels like hours before tossing out a perfunctory, “Oh there’s probably some anarcho-syndicalist anti-capitalist book burning somewhere on K street.” But the look of disappointment in a young radical’s eyes cuts right to my core. I can practically hear them screaming inside, “Has he even been to a riot in the last ten years?” I keep meaning to get out more, but these days with all the post-structural patriarchy on campus, I barely get outside of Healy gates.
Well, no more. The old Phil is back in action.
It started last weekend when I got a call from an old friend. At the time, I was lambasting several homeless people for their refusal to embrace their good fortune as social castoffs, but when I saw a call from my old riot buddy Rick coming in on the line I dropped the homeless guy I was berating for being male and answered my phone.
“Phil, you absolutely have to come meet me. I came across just the cutest little riot and you’re going to love it,” he said.
“I’m already there,” I replied.
Half an hour later I found Rick in a small, dark back-alley that reeked of human excrement. Such a hidden gem! It wasn’t like those mainstream, socially-reinforcing riots they have on Capitol Hill these days, with their corporate shilling and signs made with industrial markers. Those are blood signs! You can tell that these so-called “protesters” practically plan these “riots,” if you can even call them that, and they not only feel false and contrived, but they also probably reinforce gender inequality somehow.
No this little shindig was more like it how it used to be back in the good old days when people would drink kerosene, piss on a straw effigy and then light the sucker. And oh how we’d dance around it for hours, nearly blind from the exhaustion, MDMA and unadulterated lab-grade ethel alcohol we’d stolen.
I hesitate to tell you too much about this real find. It’s something you’ll just have to see for yourself. It’s simply adorable. It practically screams 19th century fringe Russia. From the filth on the ground to the shopping carts filled with a veritable treasure trove of found objects to be reincorporated into tools to smash through heteronormativity, right down to the tramps dressed elegantly – perhaps almost too elegantly – in plastic bags and bandanas. So authentic!
In fact, it was so authentic that I don’t even know what they were rioting about. A few of the men were screaming about something, but it was all just too much for me to take in so I just smiled and felt a warmth of condescending commiseration wash over me before Rick and I decided to head home and guilt trip each other over our own inherent privileges. A wonderful evening all around and I absolutely insist you check it out. It’s absolutely to die for.
