Recently I went to a March for Our Lives Road to Change event that featured the Parkland students who had been at the Parkland school shooting earlier this year.
Hundreds of attendees gathered at Lil Bobby Hutton Park in West Oakland, CA on July 22 to engage voter turnout with the community. Among the attendees was a group many may already know as Moms Demand Actions for Gun Sense in America.
Only two days prior, VICE News reported how the Road to Change tour was being followed by gun right activists. So it came to no surprise to me when I came to the event in West Oakland there were a few people with cameras there trying shove microphones and video recorders in the faces of attendees.
It is unfortunate, but even teenagers are not safe to organize and rally without IRL (in real life) trolls. I’ve dealt with them many times before whenever I went to a Pro-Trump rally to document the event. I’ve been accused of many things and called many names just for my presence being there with a camera. After a few rallies, I started to understand how to engage with the provocateurs, trolls, and agitators looking to get an emotional rise out of people so they can capture it on video and post it on Youtube and Social Media for clicks and likes from online trolls around the world.
Later on, I agreed to show Moms Demand Action how I handled on a conspiracy theorist who had come to the rally with a video camera yelling on about everyone wanting to take guns away.
As the Parkland students walked off the bus that day and headed to the central rally area, many people quickly swarmed them including this man who was trying to make a scene. While everyone was trying to hear what the speakers were saying, I stopped in front of the man and asked him “What are you talking about? No one is here to take your guns away.” He looked confused and started to ask me questions that were not hard to answer. I kept my answers short brief and steered away from language that I knew would be too divisive and political.
My point in doing this was not to have a great conversation with the man. It was to keep him and his camera off of the students and speakers and allow the eager crowd who was there for the rally to circle around them while the man stayed far in the back. Eventually, he took my answers as I smiled at him, he walked away and left the rally. He missed his opportunity to interrupt a critical moment because I distracted him with polite conversation.
Here are four simple tips in dealing with all kinds of situations like this one. This can include being harassed in public spaces, and potential behavior that could get out of hand.
AWARENESS
Have you noticed in public how many people are not aware of their surroundings? On a bus, train or walking on the sidewalk, it’s all too common for people to walk around unaware of their very presence in public spaces. Even before the smartphone, I noticed this as people would suddenly just walk in front of me and stop. How rude and irritating! But it is also hazardous. We should all be a lot more aware of our surroundings. Being stuck in our own thoughts, not paying attention as we look down at our phone, these are all ways in which a predator can notify you as an easy target for a crime.
Being aware of your surroundings at rallies can not only help identify provocateurs and agitators, but it can also help spot potential danger.
OBSERVE
Since you are now aware of your surrounding, part of that includes observation. Observing people’s reactions at rallies is essential, especially when they are interacting with others. Noticing that a certain wanna-be shock jock podcaster is irritating someone with a mic being shoved in their face can prevent them from getting the shock propaganda footage they are looking for.
BE CALM
A few years ago the old wartime British saying “Stay calm and carry on” became a trend. I like to think of that slogan every time I need to approach a “character” who will react based on my own reactions. Staying calm is rather boring, or cool depending on how you think about it. It’s boring for their audience and people who want to get an emotional reaction, but really cool to those who can’t believe you were able to calmly smile in their face and give them little in return.
DE-ESCALATE
To de-escalate I would advise most people to keep it simple. If you do not think you can contain your emotions dealing with someone, who will purposefully attempt to push your buttons, merely telling someone who can deal with it is your best choice.
In the video I made, I mention a tactic of stopping in front of the IRL troll, possibly with others to temporarily stall them from heading in the direction they want to.
This is not meant to be used to harass the provocateur but merely stall them. Rallies tend to move quickly, and just one minute of stalling can give enough time for those the provocateur is heading for can walk away or prepare to ignore. This should always be used without force. This is meant to be temporary and defensive, not offensive and aggressively used.
The ultimate responsibility for most rally-goers is to ignore the provocateur. Once you know what they are there for, everyone can ignore them and eventually they will give up and leave. If they continue to harass rally goers aggressively, take it up to the police patrol who is likely nearby.
