Just to be clear – because sometimes I’m a journalist – this is an essay, not a report.

I went down to Duncan Plaza on a recent, balmy Tuesday afternoon because I had heard about a non-violent, direct-action training that was scheduled. Our organization, Community Mediation Services (CMS) had been asked by a few Occupiers to provide such training. But we weren’t sure how to do that right out there in the open, available to all comers (and go-ers). In our workshops there are rules—some implicit, some explicit. We have chairs and tables and power points. Though, come to think of it, it might keep presenters accountable if participants could wander in or out depending on how relevant and engaging the information being offered was. Oddly enough, while CMS deals with many forms of conflict transformation, direct action protest is not something we had given collective thought to.

For all those reasons, I was curious to go downtown and see how they did it. I had also come up with an idea for small meditation/reflection groups trying various exercises to tamp down strong reactions in conflict situations. What a great place to field test these.

I had planned to bicycle down, but didn’t have time so I drove. I stuffed handouts about my group idea that I call Peace Pods and some CMS brochures in my back pack. As an afterthought I added my Black Panther booklet so they wouldn’t think I was a wuss.

When I get there, parking, of course, was the first challenge. I found a great place, right on Duncan Plaza. But the parking meter didn’t work for me at all, which is par for the course re my relationship to machines. I was taking it personally. For other drivers, I could see the time machine had spit out neat little receipts that were placed under windshields. But for me, no matter how many times I pressed the add time button, the time remained in the present. Don’t even think about fast forwarding to the future, it seemed to taunt me.

I asked a group of three guys who looked like they had just come home from war or just gotten out of jail if they knew how to operate the meter. They said they didn’t, but would try to help me anyway. One pulled out his knife and attacked a black button that he thought was stuck and causing the problem. After a few more frantic stabs, they gave up apologetically. Then a taxi driver who was leaving gave me his receipt – my first experience with the Occupy gift economy.

I entered the Plaza and looked around. Things looked pretty quiet. I checked out a little gated community within the community that identified itself as the Occupod. They had posted their rules and values statements and wanted you to know that they were crazy. I then walked over to the Welcome table which was manned by a clean-cut young Black man. Let me mention that there seems to be some kind of dress code (more later about the guy in his underwear), but to this casual observer, it appears to be different for Blacks and for Whites (who are in the majority). Blacks look mostly clean cut. But Whites (perhaps as part of their habitual privilege) seem to feel free to be as raggedy or outrageous in their garb as they please. I noticed that also with the anarchists who came in after Katrina to help with Common Ground.

The young Black man guided me to the site of the non-violence training which was near a stage that the city insisted had to be dismantled the day before, but backed off when protesters sat on it and refused to move. I’m thinking people of color probably didn’t name this movement, accustomed as they are to having their communities occupied. Black cultural theorist and writer Greg Tate suggests that the Occupy Wallstreeters go get a late-pass. “The sudden realization by OWS-ers that American elites never signed the social contract and will sell the people out for a fat cat’s dime – hey no news flash over here. Black folk got wise to the game back in 1865 when we realized neither 40 acres nor a mule would be forthcoming.” So why go get arrested with people who “just figured out yesterday that this shit ain’t right?”

The protest is mostly White, with about 30 or 40 real protesters. Then there are the gutter punks who are there to party, the homeless who are there to eat, and people like me just wandering through to see what’s going on. It’s not always clear who belongs to which group.

When I get to the stage, the training has just begun. The trainers, a barefoot, barely twenty-something man and woman, skinny and charmingly disheveled, were extremely good at what they were doing. They knew their manual and had their flip charts. We started with introductions and definitions and moving-around exercises with quadrants drawn on the sidewalk designed to generate conversation about what direct action was effective and whether it was violent or non-violent. We practiced resisting and cooperating and looking out for one another. The trainers did an excellent job of handling intruders like the older couple who walked right into an exercise and loudly proclaimed that they knew historian and social activist Howard Zinn, who wrote extensively about the Civil Rights and anti-war movements, and what he would think of this and asked all of us where we were from. What the facilitators did was explain what we were doing and politely moved them aside. I’ve gotten pretty good at reading a room when I conduct training, but my hat is off to trainers who can read a whole park!

When I arrived, I was glad to see two who identified themselves as being with the Integrity Group, which apparently is self-appointed and in charge of security. I had heard they were tough and intimidating and some said caused more problems than they solved. I was pleased to see that they were interested in the workshop. But they immediately got pulled away to deal with a guy running around in just his underwear. Somehow my mediator persona who would call for a dialogue with the man about appropriate attire for a protest seemed out of place. I was hoping that these self-styled vigilantes would just stuff this exhibitionist back into his tent until he knew how to behave. Whatever they did, they handled the problem in two minutes flat.

As we discussed past protest movements and what they had in common, I mentioned that the Black Panthers were very disciplined, a quality I thought perhaps all successful protests shared. As we listed past protests someone said he had heard that there were lots of protest during the Vietnam era, but he really didn’t know what they were about. Can some elders please come out and enlighten the young ones about history?

Most of the people in the square are trying their hardest to create a principled, inclusive, creative community. It’s not easy. Mayor Landrieu has assisted by putting out Port-o-Potties and keeping them clean. A police officer told me they are assigned to the periphery and instructed not to go in unless the protesters ask them to. One day over the weekend, a benevolent organization was there with fried chicken for 150. They didn’t know what the protest was about but they noticed that this big group of people looked hungry. The wild mash of agendas, personalities, and philosophies is truly a sight to behold. The “mom” and “pop” of Occupod are artists who were making their way from Austin back to their original home in New York. Being artists, they stopped in New Orleans to peddle their wares. But, as so often happens, they fell under our spell here; and now, they say, they are here for the duration. I suggest that before you form an opinion of the Occupiers you get involved in some small way or at least go down and check it out.

Orissa Arend is a psychotherapist, community organizer, mediator, and writer. You can reach her at arendsaxer@bellsouth.net.