Heckling to be heard: Why Bay Area protesters have increasingly become government disruptors

Protests of the Israel-Hamas war have derailed meetings and caused disruption in the Bay Area, illustrating "American democracy in action."

Mention government shutdowns and most people think about standoffs in Congress. But in the Bay Area, which has long been synonymous with protest, a different kind of government shutdown has become increasingly common — from the streets to school board meetings, protesters are becoming civic disruptors.

Perhaps the most high-profile example came last Monday when 700 people at a mostly Jewish-led sit-in took over Oakland’s Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building, calling for a ceasefire of violence in Gaza. Days earlier, Pro-Palestinian protesters had delayed a ship, believed to be carrying military supplies, for nine hours at the Port of Oakland.

Last Thursday, roughly 200 demonstrators demanding a Gaza ceasefire shut down rush hour traffic on the Bay Bridge, some of them throwing the keys to their cars into the water below.

That same week, during a global trade summit in San Francisco, protesters tried to shut down meetings and stop delegates at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference from entering the city’s Moscone Center.

While the largest protests make national headlines, Bay Area school board meetings have also been derailed multiple times over the last month — for a host of reasons. A Pride flag ban led to recall efforts in Sunol — and the clearing of two consecutive meetings — while allegations of a smear campaign against a fired principal prompted shouting between students and officials, not to mention a hunger strike threat, in San Leandro.

But it was once again red-hot tensions over the Israel-Hamas war that led to the disruption of a school board meeting in Oakland. After the board president failed to stop pro-Palestinian speakers, he abruptly adjourned the meeting and was booed on his way out the door.

While the idea of shutting down normal operations of government and industry comes out of a tradition that dates back centuries, Dr. Nolan Higdon, a regional expert in political communication and media literacy, said the increased emphasis on civic disruption at Bay Area protests stems from a lack of faith in government officials, news sources and other historically trusted authorities to fully — or truthfully — explain what’s going on regionally and around the globe.

“I think you see people taking action because they don’t trust anything they see, read or hear,” said Higdon, Cal State East Bay professor. “It’s the job of citizens in a democracy to organize enough people to put enough pressure on that person to where they’re forced to listen.”

This may not be as easy a task in 2023 compared to previous years. Before the 1970s, giant quads on college campuses were often community centers where people rallied together to collectively craft their message, intended audience and base of support.

But as public spaces have increasingly been sold or taken over by private interests in the ensuing decades, more activism has migrated online and become isolated on social media feeds, Higdon said. On the other hand, social media has also emerged as an effective tool for organizing protests — whether pouring out onto major streets or inside city council chambers.

Many of the protesters in Oakland who demanded a resolution supporting a ceasefire in Gaza pointed to the Richmond City Council that on Oct. 25 passed a first-in-the-nation resolution declaring the city’s support for Palestinians living in Gaza. Hundreds of people showed up for public comment on the issue.

While global issues such as the Middle East conflict will never be solved by a proclamation from a city of 100,000 people, Higdon said activists are finding they can still latch onto and help snowball a coordinated protest.

“If you can get multiple Richmonds all throughout the country,” he said, “now you have a collective movement that can put pressure on the president of the United States.”

The Richmond City Council also has illustrated that increased political activity at public meetings does not always lead to chaos. City leaders explicitly cleared their Oct. 24 meeting agenda to listen to five hours of public testimony — shared 60 seconds at a time over Zoom and inside Richmond City Hall’s packed chambers — before voting on the contentious resolution that also called for the release of Israeli hostages.

Shiva Mishek, chief of staff for Richmond’s mayor, says the city hopes its handling of the resolution can be a model for other cities and that the end result was not disruptive, but unifying.

“Local efforts are helping people feel less alone in their pain, and the effect is cumulative. Other cities feel safer to speak out because of Richmond,” Mishek said.

Cities and school boards have historically been mocked for getting involved in issues outside their jurisdictions — let alone a war several thousand miles away. But even progressive leadership in Berkeley, Oakland and cities across the Bay Area that have long embraced such symbolic gestures are currently questioning the effectiveness of local action.

Elected officials in the South Bay have been particularly quiet, where protests have been more along the lines of a few dozen Stanford students swapping their dorm rooms for sleeping bags in a weeks-long “Sit-In to Stop Genocide,” and hundreds of Silicon Valley residents gathering for more traditional protests at San Jose City Hall and Santana Row.

But the wave of political disruption is likely to continue if it gets results. Most recently, it pushed the Oakland City Council to schedule a special meeting Nov. 27 to discuss a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza — more than a month after Richmond’s vote.

Meanwhile, Andrea Prichett, a Berkeley middle-school teacher and longtime activist, says her traditionally outspoken city’s leaders are shrinking away from the responsibility — and opportunity — to create spaces for dialogue. They may find that a short-sighted strategy, as protesters affirmed at the Berkeley City Council meeting on Tuesday that they will continue disruption until they feel heard.

“We have a huge opportunity to create a safe space to model courageous conversations, empathetic listening and restorative justice,” Prichett said. “We heckle when we don’t have the opportunity to actually be heard.”