J with his bullhorn
Somehow, I had never heard of Fur Free Friday. Well, I kind of know why: there's no march in Providence, and I was never that near to Boston. And, besides, since I worked in a retail store, I was always working on Black Friday.
Anyway, through the band Rise Against's myspace page, I found out about FFF about three days beforehand. So, on the way there, I didn't really know what to expect. I'd been part of protests, marches, and other forms of civil disobedience in MA and NY... but that's the east coast. Who knows what they do here. How are the police? How are the bystanders? Will there be a lot of people?
Of course, I wasn't too worried about all of this. Just wondering. I found the place (a block north of where I work, so if I couldn't find it that would've been bad!) and immediately went up to two people to ask where they got their signs. They commented that they work at a sign shop so they made them, but there should be extras somewhere. Little did I know that these were members of the ADL (Animal Defense League), or that Jen (one of them) was a graphic designer who did most of the posters. I found that all out the day after.
After a bit, I grabbed a sign (picture of a fox, definitely still alive and well, with a price tag attached to his ear, with the caption, "Real fur shouldn't have such a high price" or something along those lines) and stood there talking about the cold and other various things. At 12:30, the man with the bullhorn (J) started talking, rallying us up, and then we took to the streets (well, sidewalks of the streets). It felt so good to be moving and chanting!
We marched to Michigan Avenue, which is the "Magnificent Mile" where all the expensive, "high class" stores in Chicago are. We went to a few chain stores (Macy's, Nordstrom, Burberry, and Neiman Marcus) that sell fur, and two specialty fur stores (Adriana Furs and Chicago Fur Mart). We stopped outside of each one for about ten minutes (I'm not good at judging time, so it could've been more or less), chanting and having J speak about the horrors of the fur industry. If someone wearing a fur coat walked by, they usually stepped up their pace. I can only think that they were feeling more than a little ashamed and couldn't face us.
Outside of Adriana Furs, J told a funny little story. He started off with how the shop used to be the entire main floor of the building, and where there were now men's suits and lingerie in the windows there once were furs. But hard times had hit, people had gotten consciences, and the shop had been relegated to the back of the building on the second or third floor. Last year they had had a going out of business sale, but the owner had taken out loans to stay in business.
Then he went on to say that the woman who owns Adriana Furs is a very interesting woman. Once, they had gotten into a debate, and she said that J needed to get a job. He replied that he has a job and it doesn't involve murdering thousands of innocent animals a year (he works at a soy ice cream factory, aka the BEST JOB EVER). She replied with, "I'll murder you!" Yeah, that's the kind of people who own fur shops, who not only don't bat an eye at the killing of animals so they can make a profit, but also don't care about threatening murder on humans. (Side note: while he was telling this story, one of the girls next to me commented that the woman had also once called her "elderly". This person was about my age!)
Chicago Fur Mart was our last stop, where it was announced that we would be coming back every Saturday from 2-4 until they closed down. We stayed outside of the Fur Mart longer than the others, and maybe that's why we got more dissenting opinions than before. Two women walked by chanting, "Fur is great! It's so nice!" Uh, yeah, nice ethical argument you've got there. Mainly, that's what we encountered. Loudmouths who didn't want to engage in a debate when challenged. In fact, I think that's all that we got. Well, aside from the many supporters. And one woman complaining that "This is what our tax money goes to," referring to the police (yes, imagine that, the tax money goes to exercising the power of free speech in the First Amendment), and one woman complaining to the cops, "Can't you get them off the sidewalks?" (Michigan Ave. is always very busy, and more so on Black Friday.) Yeah, because then we would really be getting the message out there.
As for the police themselves, I was really impressed with the good job that they did. When one man was starting to make trouble as he walked by, the police officer to my left gave a nod to his partner on my right and they covertly moved along the line next to the man. Of course the man was just all hot air, but it was good to see that the police were there if needed. As it was, they weren't extremely needed, but maybe something would have happened if they hadn't been. But hey, I saw at least one of them nodding his head to our chants! Maybe we had an impact on the police as well?
After the march, J announced that there would be an after-party in a nearby park... once everyone got some delicious vegan pumpkin spice hot chocolate soy latte (haha, seriously!) and some weird bar thingies, courtesy of Food Not Bombs. But everyone just stood around talking for a while until people slowly dissipated. After a while, a few of us went over to the park, where some people threw around a (vegan, assumingly) football and the rest of us talked. I got to have great conversations with J, Emelda, and Wayne, who are all members of the ADL. Emelda invited me to start up a vegan rollerderby team with her... once we find vegan skates. And I was wearing my Weakerthans hoodie and everyone knew them, which has never before happened in a gathering of more than two people that I've been a part of (aside from their concerts, obviously). So that was cool. But it was cold, very cold, so most people didn't go to the after-party, and we all headed out after not too long. But it was good to have intelligent conversations with people who apparently have a lot in common with me.
By the way, the Chicago Tribune wrote a not too biased article.