There’s a global movement happening right now. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, a continuation of centuries of fighting for Black equality and Black rights is finding focus through the activism of groups like Black Lives Matter. As skaters, we like to herald that we’re already in the streets and that this gives us a leg up on dealing with the police and understanding the systemic issues that lead to racism and other inequalities. Many skaters are aware and involved on many levels and, frankly, it makes me proud to be a part of a community so full of genuine activism.As a male skater who is in his 30s, though, I know that myself and my community can do more. On Saturday, June 20th, I attended a skate protest in the Silverlake and Echo Park neighborhoods of Los Angeles. I had seen and attended these kinds of skate mobs in the past—they are becoming a common fixture for Go Skateboarding Day. I also participated in wheeled protests but this one culminated at a planned rally in Echo Park that gave it a cohesiveness many I had attended before were lacking. There was a certain kind of vibrant creativity around me that seemed to be coming from more than just the skateboarding world— roller skaters did choreographed dances on stage and the crowd drew passersby to give impromptu speeches about their experience as Black people in America.I found out that the protest, called Skate for Justice, was organized by a 19-year-old Black woman from Pasadena named Doris Mantley and a four-person team; Isaak Navarro, Chloe Little, Lilly Fuller, and Lauren Sayre. Doris had attended the first protest of her life on May 30th and by June 6th was organizing one of her own—to be pulled off just two weeks later with sponsorship from Real Skateboards, no less. This type of transition from a young adult skater to protest organizer in such a short span of time seemed like the perfect experience to help me and others learn about more ways they can keep staying involved to ensure we are creating real change rather than a moment to look back on. Here’s what Doris has to say.
Interview by Adam Abada
Your protest was called the ‘Skate for Justice’ so I need to ask upfront, do you skate?
I’ve been into skateboarding culture since freshman year of high school so I’ve been involved for a while but I just recently started skating.
And how about activism, what’s your history there?
I don’t really have a history of activism. I went to my first protest on May 30th and I haven’t done any events prior to this. I guess I’ve spoken out on Instagram and talked to my friends about things but never anything that was hands-on.
So how did you come up with the Skate for Justice?
One of the other organizers, Chloe, lives in Redondo Beach and they were doing a roller skating event down there on June 6th. She sent it to us in a group chat and invited us to come down. I couldn’t end up going but I thought it would be cool to do something similar in Los Angeles because there’s such a big skating scene.
When you say it like that, the whole thing seems sort of nonchalant. I find that myself and maybe other people sometimes have trouble activating themselves—can you explain how the jump from the idea to action actually happened?
Haha, I get that. It all happened so fast so it’s hard but I get you. It was my idea to do this in Los Angeles, I started a group chat right then and there and started planning. I brought up questions like what the route would look like and how we would even get it going. We started a GoFundMe to raise money and started slowly but gradually putting ideas out there. We had five people in the group chat helping plan everything from the route to flyers to safety. Importantly, we needed a date that made sense from the time we had the idea and what we could pull off.
It sounds like you have some planning experience…
Ha! I guess it comes from my sister, who’s an event planner, so she was in my ear a little bit as we got closer to the event. Initially, it was just me. I’m a detail-oriented person and I had gone to a lot of protests the weeks before so I saw what worked and what didn’t.
I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be confusing as someone who had gone to events like this for BLM. I went to the big one the Saturday before I pitched the idea on Hollywood Boulevard with thousands of people. It was great but a lot of people were kind of walking blindly without knowing what the end game was. It was super cool to have all those people out there but for my event I wanted people to know where they were going and what the end was instead of it just being a march, you know?
How did you actually plan all the logistics of the skate once you knew you were going to do it?
One of our main concerns was that we would have to talk to the police or the city. We obviously didn’t want to do that because one of the things we are protesting is engaging with the police. My friend who’s a skater from Los Angeles covered the basics of what he thought would be a good route for all levels of skater that would be long enough for it to be a good cruise.
How did you conceive, plan and execute the speaking portion at the rally point in Echo Park towards the end of the skate?
I think that the planning process is something we need to work on for future events. We put out a call for speakers and got a few responses but otherwise it was just me and someone I reached out to from the Black Artist Party. We didn’t have a plan for people coming to the stage or being next. So I kind of just played it by ear and got on the mic and invited anyone who wanted to speak—prioritizing Black voices—and it ended up working out well. But at one point, someone who said they were just passing by came up to me and asked me why there weren’t more Black and Brown womxn speaking. And that was really hard for me to hear because I wanted to promote an event that was a welcome place for those speakers. As a Black woman speaking first, I thought I was kind of setting it up for that. So I learned some things for next time about how to organize speakers.
The separate parts of the event—the meeting, the skating, and the rallying in the park —all felt cohesive and had the same message. Was it smooth sailing in planning to make sure you got that message across?
Going into it, as a Black woman, I knew from the get go that this was just about Black Lives Matter. It was always about that and nothing else for me and the rest of the organizers were very understanding about that. Once we got the sponsorship from Real Skateboards there was a bit of a buzz among us like “Oh my god, this is so cool!” and it was a bit distracting but I made sure to stay on track. The focus is not on sponsors or what skaters are coming but Black Lives Matter and amplifying Black voices. Since I’m Black and another organizer is as well, we were very much in that headspace.
What was it like working with Real?
We sent the flyer out to a bunch of brands on Instagram to see if any would post it and Real ended up reaching out to us and asking if we needed any more help. They supported us in any way they could—offering a Public Address (PA) system, having some skaters come out—and they decided to do an Instagram fundraiser for us. They were totally cool and let us take the reins of everything we wanted to do.
Another sponsor, Black By Young, which is a small Los Angeles brand, donated some custom boards that we gave out. That was amazing for us.
What about all the other stuff you need to make an event come together?
We, the organizers, reached out to friends and families for all the other stuff—snacks, water, tables, tents, that stuff. In the end, a friend of a friend offered to use his PA system which was all set up to have a DJ and stuff instead of Real’s and everyone was totally cool with that.
It started off internally with friends helping out and volunteering and then all the extra stuff that came from outside brands just enhanced the event. And for the two skaters on the organizing group, me and Isaak, we were so excited to see the skaters. Like Wow! There’s Ishod, they’re here for our event? It was cool to see the community come together.
As a Black woman who skates, how do you see the skate community’s involvement in the anti-police and Black Lives Matters movement right now?
I do appreciate the amount of skaters who are involved in the movement and are out there right now. But, to be completely candid, I don’t think there is good communication within the skate community. Especially when it comes to supporting people who are of a different race or gender from cis white men. It’s really interesting, as a Black woman, to experience the still existing taboo of being a womxn who skates. It’s really easy for me to see the lack of womxn skaters at my event, or the lack of the ones sponsored, or the lack of Black womxn skaters, or even the lack of Black men who can or want to speak up. It’s a given that the skate community needs to work on racism and sexism.
To be honest, there were some pro skateboarders at the event but they weren’t really doing anything. I don’t want to sit here and accuse them or judge them for what they’ve done because I don’t know, but I think that pro skaters—Black, white, whatever—can use their platform. It doesn’t seem like pro skaters want to contribute as much as they can, especially at events like this when they can come and speak and assert their experiences of being Black in the industry. People like Na-Kel Smith are speaking out about the racism they’ve experienced. Skaters shouldn’t feel comfortable at events like this. There’s racism in the skate community. With Skate for Justice, I want to make sure that every single skater is feeling uncomfortable and speaking out and realizing there’s more than just coming out to a protest.
As an organizer, what advice would you give to someone organizing an event?
First, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons! Make sure you’re doing it because you want to bring attention to the movement you support and throughout the planning process continually know you’re doing it for that.
Two, have a solid group of people to plan with who can support you and you can communicate with. It’s bigger than your group of friends or your small world—other people are going to be there and you’re in charge of that experience so you need to know you can work together.
Also, being realistic is helpful. Knowing what the goal is and what you want to do and how big you can make it actually.
Finally, I would say to commit to it. A couple days after we planned this we saw another skate protest was planned on the same day [June 21 – Go Skate Day] and we panicked a bit but then realized we could just change the day and it was fine.
As an informed citizen, what advice would you give to someone who wants to participate in the movement but doesn’t know how?
If you haven’t been involved in public action or protest before and are looking to, I would say to start small, especially now. I don’t want to tell people to go out and go to a protest during a pandemic if you’re not comfortable with that. I totally get that. Whether it’s donating or signing a petition or just getting in your car and driving past a protest and holding a sign to check it out. In a more personal sense, get more comfortable with the problems and issues that are going on. Make sure you’re internally comfortable and having conversations with people and doing the work to start to understand it in yourself before you start to make it external and going out.
It’s way bigger than just going out to a protest and holding signs. It’s really about changing people’s minds and you do that by having those conversations.
Feature image by Chris Swainston.
