Yesterday afternoon, after a nice brunch down in the Bowery with Little David and visiting Chicago blogger Jake and his humpy fiancé, we wandered up to Union Square and ran into an anti-Olympics protest. I walked around to take pictures of the protesters with their signs, but aside from the woman below (I think she’s a nun), most didn’t want to be photographed by me and held their posters in front of their face.
I’ve run into that before at various anti-war protests. I guess they see a middle-aged white guy with a military-ish haircut taking pictures and think “Homeland Security!” or whatever. There’s more a than a little paranoia at some of these things, but probably deservedly so. And I suppose if I were a Chinese national protesting human rights abuses at home, I might be wary of being photographed too. I also noticed that the wretched Falun Gong had infiltrated the event, swapping the anti-Olympics signs for gory photos of Falun Gong followers who are allegedly suffering live organ harvesting for China’s sick elite.
Tags 2008 Olympics activism China Falun Gong protest Tibet Union Square