Remember the power of a united women's movement and the solidarity of a community of autonomous factions that supported them in the face of injustice, slander, and the threat of physical violence on the night of November 13, 2007. Corporate media and the local authorities are trying to cloud the truth about what happened in Olympia, an All-American City. By sensationalizing the police-initiated violence that broke out in the latter half of the night, neglecting to mention the initial blockade as a women's movement, and re-arranging the facts in order to implicate disorganization and violent anarchy as the causes of the 45 arrests that night, they are attempting to obscure and cast doubt upon the actions of a group of 41 of our sisters, all arrested before any outbreak of violence. These are 41 sisters whose adherence to active non-violence should serve as an example to everyone that women not only can or could have power, but that they do, and that power can galvanize and unite a community to take decisive and definitive action against inequity.

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I arrived at the Port of Olympia at approximately 8:30 PM on that numbingly cold night, wary of another night of protesting in light of the fractious infighting that had flared up over the previous weeks of port militarization resistance. Walking from my car to the meeting site, I was greeted by a sight that I still have yet to fully comprehend: the physical body of an organized community in action. Having missed many of the meetings of the OlyPMR, I was unaware that our community of protesters had organized into affinity groups, agreeing on what action each group of people would take. The women's group had elected to engage in the direct action of physically blocking the port as a show of both civil disobedience to an illegal military occupation and a tangible action of women's empowerment. At the intersection of streets that led to the port, each sidewalk corner was filled; one with a group of women, readying themselves to place their bodies in the way of imminent violence, one with a group of protesters of all genders, ready to support the women's group with their voices and presence, and one group composed of legal witnesses and medics, prepared to provide the legal support and emergency care we would vitally need later that night. Regrettably, the last corner of the intersection had been claimed by a dedicated group of anti-protest agitators, already engaging in the vocalization of words so hateful that I will never forget them, words that are unnervingly and strikingly similar the hate-saturated comments about the protests publicly displayed on our local fishwrap, the Olympian's, website.

In front of us, the Olympia Police Department made clear their intent to use pre-emptive violence, standing rank and file and adorned with full riot gear, brandishing weapons ranging from rubber-bullet firing pump-action shotguns and CO2 powered pellet guns loaded with balls of pepper spray to the ubiquitous brown and black of police batons and nightsticks. Staring at that bristling armament being handled with cold intent, I remembered the strange detachment I felt when reading reports about "non-lethal" weaponry the day before: "non-lethal" is a label that lulls the public into believing that the weapons in question are "non-violent", painless suppressors of public unrest. The fact is, outside of their use as last-ditch tools to suppress the most violent of criminals, any other application of these weapons is done with one goal in mind: to instill terror by inflicting the maximum amount of pain upon living bodies. This point was continually driven home to me later in the night as I watched fellow protesters, hit with batons, rubber bullets, and pepper spray, vomiting on the sidewalk and the streets, unable to breathe or see as the police barred our medics from helping them. Every incident of violence that I personally witnessed in the six hours I remained at the port was instigated by a police force that, in the interest of time and efficiency, chose to use brutal physical violence to drive us back instead of taking unresisting men and women into custody.

Shortly after my arrival at the port with a fellow friend and protester, I joined up with the women's affinity group as a part of a four-man auxiliary group. I am still uncertain as to what our function ultimately was, since any direct support of the women's group we engaged in was done in tandem with the rest of the resistance community, so whole-hearted was the communication and support between the factions working within and with the OlyPMR. As my three brothers and I conversed, all attention was on the women who were simultaneously taking roll, distributing goggles and face masks, and engaging in intergroup call-backs that raised morale and drowned out the increasingly desperate hate-mongering and gender-bashing that emanated from the anti-protest corner. Standing in the cold with my collar turned up, chain-smoking over my bandana, I felt the almost overwhelming wave of aggression from the frenzied flag wavers as medics moved around me, identifying themselves to the women who were taking action and distributing the phone number for legal support. At the request of one of the women, I briefly left the port to go on a water run, feeling a palpable disconnection between the quiet activity in the store and the growing tension at the port, no more than 5 city blocks away.

Upon my return, I distributed the water equally between the three corners of the street that my brothers and sisters had occupied. Overhearing the telling of what seemed to be a story too good to be true, I queried another protester about what happened while I was away. The story he told has not been reported anywhere in the media, and while I am unable to substantiate it myself, given the number of people who claimed to have seen it happen, I feel obligated to repost it. Apparently a soldier from the Stryker brigade, who later refused to give his name in case of reprisal, actually walked out of the port, shook protesters hands, related his opinion about the whole business, then went to talk to the Veterans For Peace. It was an astounding story, and, if it is substantiated, should be broadcast nationwide.

The port resistance had begun to spill off of the sidewalk and into the street as our ranks swelled with newly arrived activists, and at around 9 PM, the women's group linked arms and sat down on the port-side of the intersection. The rest of us surged forward and gathered behind them, calling out our support for our sisters and filling the intersection. Simultaneously, a line of men stretched across the pro-war side of the street, blocking off bodily interference from the group of anti-protesters. Walking to support my brothers, I watched them silently stare down the verbal abuse and threats of physical violence that were being slung at them from inches away, linking arms and holding their ground in the face of barely restrained hate. I am ethnically Chinese and Japanese and a first-generation American citizen, born in the United States, and as I walked down the line I heard a shout directed at me: "HEY GOOK, DO YOU HAVE YOUR GREEN CARD?" Let me repeat: "Hey gook, do you have your green card?" This is the hate that I'm talking about, a hate that not only sweepingly derided my comrade protesters but also chose to single me out as it singled out so many of us that night. These were the howls of supporters of racism, patriarchy, and reactionary fascism that my sisters and brothers stood face to face and ear to mouth with in non-violence for three hours. I kept walking, giving the line what emotional support I could, trying to bolster the example of non-violence that the 41 women were communicating to us by fearlessly placing themselves in front of the 40 riot police who stood at the entrance to the port.

Time seemed to slow to crawl as we waited in that intersection, calling out our slogans for solidarity, non-violence, and peace as the police proceeded to erect a portable light tower that illuminated the area, backlighting the OPD in an ironically threatening vision of a police state that was clearly not there to serve and protect, but to hurt and cause fear. For over a half-hour we waited as the temperature plummeted. Once, twice, three times a megaphone exhorted us to clear the area if we did not want to be pepper-sprayed, and each time we responded by chanting "We are non-violent! No violence is necessary!", knowing full well the harm perpetrated by the same police officers standing in front of us over the course of the last week. Finally, after convening and talking amongst themselves, the police decided to make their move. The 41 women in the line held their ground, while the rest of us did the same behind them as we all prepared for the worst.

Make no mistake that there was violence enacted that night, but it was not then, not within the crucial first three hours of the night, three hours that we must not allow to be forgotten. For what little it means in light of their later actions, the police did not react to the women or the rest of us with violence at that time. Instead, they paired up and, one-by-one, arrested the non-resisting but non-compliant women, taking them from the ends of the line and carrying them to vans. Later, they would move the women from these vans to an Inner City Transit bus, procured to hold our sisters in custody for over three hours without moving them to the jail. Ironically, the public bus was never used for the movement of arrested protesters at all, as they were all moved from the bus back to the vans for secure transportation. For their part, the anti-protesters hurled a constant stream of insults that ranged from calling our masculine presence "pussies" to rejoicing in the coming spectacle of violence, letting us know again and again that "There'll be plenty of rubber bullets and pepper spray for everybody!" A primary source later told me that while the women waited on the bus, one of the male members of the anti-protester bloc slipped around the fence to the port and, in full view of the police, hurled obscenities and invective at them before exposing his genitalia to them, all without any repercussions from the watching OPD.

After about 20 arrests had been made, it became clear that the process was taking too long for the Port and for the police. In response, the majority of the police pushed the main group of protesters back from the line of women, back into the street, although the line of brothers held their place on the sidewalk in front of the group of anti-protesters, who, interestingly enough, were not forced to move off of the sidewalk even though they had been very vocal about their willingness to use violence. Again, with a touch of irony, I noted that our movement was compliant and non-violent with no one actively or aggressively resisting the attempts of the police to move us. Later, this exact same behavior would not save us from being sprayed, shot, and beaten in the streets and on the public sidewalks. In order to speed up the process of taking the remaining women into custody, the OPD pulled the van up in front of them to minimize their carrying distance. All the while, the rest of us who had been denied our ability to bodily support our sisters raised our voices again and again, reminding them that they were not alone, down to the last woman who sat, both arms raised high and waving peace signs as they took her away.

Things unravelled quickly after that. The police pulled back into the port entrance and the rest of us followed them, retaking the ground we had stood on in solidarity with the arrested women. A second line of protesters, this time of all genders, formed across the road, even larger than the first line of 41 women. After the non-violent arrests of the women's group, it seemed that we might be able to continue the same tactic in order to delay the shipment of Stryker vehicles until the port and the OPD had to give up. It was then that the first convoy came roaring out of the north road that led out of the port, completely bypassing our intersection. This did not come as a complete surprise to me, as rumors of military and police movement around the north road had been circulating for some time since the police began taking women into custody. However, I felt, as I'm sure many of my brothers and sisters felt as well, that to split up at that crucial point in time would only serve to break the solidarity that we needed to have in the middle of the women's sacrifice. In hindsight, I believe that by staying, we made what was undeniably the right decision: despite our inability to effectively block the Stryker convoy that night, we made an undeniable statement that a united, non-violent community could honor gender equality, yet still preserve faction autonomy while making a direct and powerful stand against government injustice.

As our group splintered off and people chased the convoys down the street, I remained at the port in order to bear witness for those who were left behind and to continue showing my support for the women in custody by being visually present. I watched the majority of my brothers and sisters sprinting down the sidewalks, while the police gave chase and selectively clubbed and sprayed those who did not move to the sidewalks fast enough for them. I want to make clear that there were at least 40 people who stayed at the port with me, 40 people who were not giving chase to the vehicles as they disappeared towards downtown. Of those 40 people, I witnessed 5 of them beaten and sprayed while they were very clearly walking towards the sidewalk, in a direction opposite of the Stryker convoy. One of the protesters, who had her glasses forcibly removed from her face so that she could be repeatedly sprayed in the face from close range, was a fourteen year old girl who later spoke at the closing rally on Saturday. She had been given such a gross overdose of pepper spray that our medics had to keep an almost constant stream of water on her face and eyes in the near-freezing cold. When the mainstream media speaks of the violence at the port and decries the misconduct of the protesters, attempting to cast aspersions that it was us who caused the violent behavior, I call bullshit. While I did not join in the action downtown, an action that ended with four shattered windows in a bank(a bank that I'm sure can ill afford to have its windows replaced), a shattered windshield on a police car, and a police officer taking a rock to the knee through the cushioning layers of their his/her riot gear, I stayed at the port and personally witnessed the pre-emptive use of physical brutality and chemical weaponry upon non-resisting, non-violent people clad in civilian clothing, people who cannot be replaced like shattered glass but have to continue living with what our "public servants" did to them.

I stayed at the port until 2 AM, witnessing the movement of the arrested women after hours of unnecessary detainment, and one last confrontation between an angry bloc of protesters returning from downtown and the remaining riot police. As I was waiting for the bus to transport the women to jail, I heard a clamor coming down the street that lead directly downtown from the port. Turning, I saw a mass of protesters that filled the street from sidewalk to sidewalk, marching in a block and shouting "Whose port? Our port!" I walked out to join them and we covered the remaining distance to the intersection, an unmistakable note of anger to our calls and to the speed with which we marched. The riot police were there to meet us, and for a moment it dawned on me the enormity of the situation that was brewing around me as the remaining members of the OlyPMR stood face to face with the OPD. I am glad to report that, while there was invective that was passed back and forth between both sides, the potential for all-out violence quickly fizzled and the port remained free from any sort of violence on the part of the protesters. Eventually people splintered off again, some heading downtown, others heading for City Hall, but I remained, determined to see our sisters in custody transported away from the port. Finally, the police moved them from the bus to vans and the vans took off, signaling the end of my night at the port.

Later, as I stayed up to write my initial thoughts about the protest that night, I was contacted by another primary contact who had been arrested and released at around 4 AM. She related to me stories of how the women were forced to strip to one unit of upper-body clothing as they were packed into an unheated locker room at the Olympia City Jail, as well as numerous occurrences of sexist and misogynist conduct on the part of the OPD, who seemed to be enjoying having two-score young women incarcerated in the building. The professionalism of the OPD should be called into question, not only for their gross misuse of physical force, but also for their workplace conduct towards these women.

This is the best recounting of my experiences that I can muster at this time. If it seems to readers that there is a blatant spin and political slant to all of this, I say that you are correct: I am first an activist, and second a recorder of events. However, I insist that I have written everything that I can remember about that night as accurately as my human memory can recall. I must reiterate that my purpose in writing this is to pay homage to the truly momentous events in the first three hours of action that the mainstream press refuses to print or never bothered to find out about before fixating on sensationalist portrayals of anarchy in Olympia. I thank my sisters for their dedication to non-violence that became the rallying point for the rest of us and their patience in waiting for the real stories of their power to be told, and I charge you readers to remember.