Earlier in the day I came across a video of Shamar Thomas, a man who will certainly become a star within the Occupy Wall Street Movement and likely beyond. (You know, he’ll end up on Survivor Island, or something. ) In the video, Thomas, a Sergeant in the Marine Corps who served in Iraq and is seen wearing his desert camouflage as identifying proof, is on the streets of New York City during the Occupy Wall Street Protests.
gothamist.com/2011/10/17/video_marine_sergeant_tears_cops_a.php
You can never know how much is performance for the wall of cell phones that are being held up around the man or how much is righteous anger, but Thomas completely cowed a line of New York City police officers. To my eye, it was hard to tell that the scene was amidst the swirl of a protest, as it looked like a pretty typical street scene in downtown Manhattan, except of course, for the unusual police presence. In short, it looked relatively peaceful.
Still, Thomas, an absolutely huge and powerful looking black man, was furiously yelling at the cops. In the face of his anger, his exasperation, the police looked like children, like miniature figurines rather than the institutional storm troopers we always sort of hope that they are. Thomas was vigorously propelling his point of view that it was the role of the police to protect the people on the street and not hurt them, repeating again and again, that they were unarmed and that this was not a combat zone. A native of New York City, he said that he’d fought, as had his entire family, to protect the people and that he wasn’t going to come home to watch them be manhandled on the very streets they lived. The authority he projected, both morally and physically, was incredible.
The police didn’t know what to do. In their faces you saw their youth and uncertainty, their vulnerability. They were nervous and they lacked confidence, looking somewhere for the leadership that never emerged. Thomas just got braver as his performance continued, the crowd in awe behind him, the police stunned in front, as if actually thinking about each thing he was saying. Maybe they weren’t really that different than the people protesting? Maybe this Iraq vet knew what he was talking about? The best idea the police came up with was to start to use a megaphone to try to drown out Thomas, but still, his voice rose above it, and it was stunning to watch, because it was clear that right at that moment the police did not know who they worked for, and to me, that was a revolutionary moment.
Thomas, content that he had made his point and had pushed things as far as they could safely go, stalked off down the street, receiving high-fives and grateful hugs from people who were practically in tears to see that they too had somebody powerful on their side, somebody capable of enacting what must have seemed like a miracle– their very own superhero.