Dada in the Public Square: Police, Protest, and Creative Dissent

Abstract

The Republican National Convention in Cleveland culminated one of the craziest party nominating contests in history. Many people on both the left and the right were dissatisfied with the result—the coronation of Donald J. Trump. Trump's rhetoric throughout the primary season had been incendiary, and had led to protests, sometimes violent, at his events. Because of this, security in Cleveland was extremely tight, and progressive groups, including the ACLU, sued in advance over worries that citizens' rights to free speech were going to be unconstitutionally restricted. As a result, the police presence in Cleveland was overwhelming. They manned barricades on foot, on horseback, on bicycles, and in cars—totaling nearly 5,500 in all. This made protesting very difficult, and forced protesters to become creative in expressing their dissent.

This article describes the situation in Cleveland, and shows how dissent—in the spirit of the now century-old Dada movement that rose up in response to World War I—still finds a way to express itself, even when this dissent must become shocking and outrageous to gain voice and show the true absurdity of an undemocratic situation.

Notes

¹ While it reaches beyond the scope of this article, there is little doubt that violence as a form of protest is very communicative. One need only look at the pictures and read about the riots that happened in Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of the death of Michael Brown and the failure to indict Darren Wilson, the police officer who shot him, for his death or the riots that happened in Baltimore in the aftermath of the death Freddie Gray to understand this, even if one does not condone it. As D. Watkins wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times about Baltimore and why the Black citizens there took to the streets,

“Some people might ask, “Why Baltimore?” But the real question is, “Why did it take so long?”…

We are all starting to believe that holding hands, following pastors and peaceful protests are pointless. The only option is to rise up, and force [the mayor] to make what should be an easy choice: Stop protecting the livelihoods of the cops who killed Freddie Gray, or watch Baltimore burn to the ground. (Watkins, 2015).

² The one notable exception happened on Wednesday, July 20, when 18 people were arrested during a scuffle with police during a flag burning event, which is Constitutionally protected speech (Associated Press, 2016).

³ It is worth noting that many other people, including journalists, saw and wrote about Crawford and his protests at the DNC. He was a very visible presence in Cleveland, and as I have written here, there were far fewer protesters than expected. As well, Crawford was always a very animated character. That said, he was not always as dramatic as I have portrayed him here, and he seemed to have a relatively good relationship with the police. This fact, I argue, only adds to the sense of social disequilibrium of his performance on July 19. He moved past what was expected of him to shock and speak out, even if doing so was strange or might be received as utterly dissonant and irreconcilable by members of law enforcement he actually knew. For another brief account of Crawford's time in Cleveland, and his seeming friendly rapport with police, see Matt Pearce's (2016) piece in the Los Angeles Times, “Please Ignore the Man with the Bullhorn.”

⁴ For Judith Butler, this is the heart of resignification—converting the insult into something that is affirming and powerful to the once offended (see Butler, 1993).

⁵ https://www.pussyhatproject.com/

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephanie A. Martin

Stephanie A. Martin, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Corporate Communication and Public Affairs department at Southern Methodist University.

E-mail: [email protected]