Three Provocations

1. Left of the entrance to Barclays Center, on approach, in front of the Starbucks, a small group gathered beside the protest, which itself had clustered in front of a row of police officers. The chant had faded from Eric Garner into Mike Brown; the central circular march had lost its shape, but seemed to be finding it again. An older white man in a leather jacket walked up, looked around with a smile on his face, and laughed. He approached a young woman with a sign and asked what all this was about, and she said putting an end to white supremacy. Emoting and sounding much more like Andrew Dice Clay than he did before, he lapsed into a sort of bit. White supremacy? They still have that? How can I get in on that? He laughed again and she winced. The pair fell out of earshot, then quickly parted ways. The man wandered off, as content as before, and the woman with the sign returned to face the crowd, looking a little more tired.

2. Two white teenage boys, amped on hormones and giddy with post-game exuberance, drifted out of the pillar of non-participants that was now filing from the doors of Barclays directly through the protest. The game had let out; it was quarter to ten, about two hours after the big die-in, and a few minutes before Jay-Z and the Duke of Cambridge shook hands inside. I could not hear what the teens said, only that they were laughing. One threw his arms up in the air. Theirs was an energy that did not fit anywhere between the still, tense police and the marching, careful protesters. Another teenager, this one marching, intercepted them verbally. Fuck you, you’re an idiot — you’re fucking racist. The teens were neither fazed nor humbled nor interested in whom they had upset or how. They kept laughing, a little more intensely than before, and filed forward.

3. A young white couple leaving the game pushed through a crowd that was moving toward the subway entrance that faces Barclays. A man nearby had yelled to shut down the trains, and a small segment of the protesting crowd moved in his direction. The bustle startled the couple. One partner said to the other, privately but within earshot of at least a dozen people, you wanna say, hey, we’re on your side!. She laughed, and then they walked toward the unobstructed subway entrance across the street, by Modell’s. Neither looked back.