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Wild in the streets
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About this time, I felt the animal instinct kick in. It's a familiar reflex for a mother, but not one I often feel walking, child-free, in the middle of the day in the glittering downtown of an American city. Yet, as the streets deteriorated, my peripheral vision lengthened and my muscles slightly tensed, preparing to spring out of harms way. What animal was I? In this case, one that was being hunted, one that was wished extinct.

Also Today Wild in the streets What better place to find a hottie than at a riot conveniently taking place in my neighborhood? By Annie Culver   The three horsemen of globalization Critics fear increased cooperation between the World Trade Organization, World Bank and International Monetary Fund will spawn an 800-pound gorilla. By Monte Paulsen   The great straddler Free trader Clinton veers left in Seattle. But will his act be enough to keep Al Gore's Democratic Party intact? By Todd Gitlin

A clump of colleagues and I changed strategy -- from trying to get to a particular place to trying to get to any place that was inside and secure. Instead we got trapped between two linked and locked lines of protestors at the intersection of Sixth and Pine. Suddenly it was just us and many, many people who hated us for being there and didn't want to let us leave. We were cornered by the pack, conflicted about the issues -- caught in every way imaginable.

All mothers learn to expect the unexpected. That's why we all carry huge bags full of seemingly useless items which, employed creatively, become essential in the crisis of the moment. But I was off duty. The only thing I had in my bag at Sixth and Pine was a briefing book on trade and the environment. I doubted the protesters surrounding me would find the book essential in this particular crisis. If anything, the document could be used as evidence of my "guilt."

So I stood there and thought: "This is incredibly irresponsible. I have two little children at home and I am now standing in the middle of a street where literally anything could happen to me." Increased globalization is simply not a good enough reason to put my kids in that kind of jeopardy.

Then something unexpected happened. A young woman in an orange cap appeared next to me and my two colleagues. She said softly, "If you want to get out, you need to go over there," and nodded toward the upper left corner of the human chain that boxed us in. We walked to that corner, looking for a break. Two women there unlinked their hands for us to pass. A boy nearby shouted, "Don't let them go!" and the women whispered, "Hurry through!" And we did. A small, sweet moment of kindness in a chaotic day.

I have always believed that the most important local action a person can take is to assume responsibility for her own family, to make sure they have what they need to be safe and happy: shelter, food, laughter, clean air and water. Places to play.

But sometimes you can do everything right at home and then, if you are distracted by the peace, something larger will come along that undoes all your careful planning. It could be an unexpected flu, or a fender bender; or it could be a trade agreement that didn't have an environmental review process. Each event can have a profound impact, each event encroaches on our quality of life, and so we are caught, all of us, in the same intersection, between global and local.

For our kids' sake we need a constructive confrontation. We cannot allow thinking globally to be hurtful locally, to interfere with our own ability to take care of our families. That is what the nonviolent protesters are saying in Seattle, and I believe our country is listening. I believe that our president is listening, and he agrees.
salon.com | Dec. 3, 1999

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