A perhaps random thought that crossed my mind as an African - American man walked pass me is that this type of protest action would register on a somewhat higher key in the collective psyche of Pittsburghers and Americans in general if hundreds or several thousand people of color took to the streets.

Regarding the issue of race, I encountered two young men who told me that they would never go to the Hill District due to its high crime rate. I didn't experience problems when I was there yesterday. An idea is that the Black folk in the Hill District right now won't express hostility to a skinny white guy on a bicycle, given that they right now may tend to think I am there as some sort of liberal do-gooder--despite the local buzz about rowdy protestors bent on breaking people's windows.

This idea about how race pertains to protests is something I thought about amidst the mostly white and mostly male young adults in the streets dressed in black and behaving confrontationally toward police. Am I reading into things to think that things would be different if they were mostly people of color ?

What have been the consequences of these people calling themselves anarchists confronting the working class men and women in riot gear? Has it brought greater attention to ending Third World debt or curbing the privitization of people's access to water or seeds ? Contact me at thomasover@gmail.com or 614 202 0178