Route 1: Starting a different kind of fire

I know as an activist I'm supposed to oppose sports riots. I'm supposed to complain that students are willing to take to the streets when the Terrapin mens' basketball team wins but not when tuition increases or black enrollment drops. Sadly, I can't play the alienated radical role today because I was there Wednesday night, and I saw more than drunk revelers.

When students took to Route 1 after a hard-fought victory over Duke, it was with joy and celebration. We chanted "Maaarylaaaand," and we didn't mean the buildings or the endowment or the logo. We meant one another. A few talented (and tall) members of our community made us all proud, and we showed them how we felt with our bodies and our voices. The collective enthusiasm and joy couldn't fit in our rooms, so we took it outside.

Here are the facts as they stand days later: Students removed a U-turn sign and lit a Duke jersey as well as four trash cans on fire. Police arrested 23 students and beat and pepper-sprayed many more.

From the tally of destruction, it's clear the violence of what's being called a "riot" was not mostly against property. For an evening, we destroyed the traditional relationships between one another and the space around us. I heard white guys in polo shirts and backward hats shout about racism when they saw police snatching a lot of black students. We talked to people we didn't know and started chants without prompting from a scoreboard. No one needed a declared march by self-proclaimed student leaders or activists to take the streets, just our collective excitement.

There are no shortage of police apologists among students, especially within the ranks of self-proclaimed leaders and activists, but we know the police met the celebration with batons and pepper spray. No cops were needed to protect businesses to which students felt attached; the bars were full. Instead, the police surrounded the Bank of America, even when students were blocks away. When students are shot from behind with plastic bullets as they flee an advancing police line in and around their own campus, there is no excuse.

Whether it was against Devils in blue on the court or cops in blue on the street, students came together Wednesday. The feeling that causes students to pick each other up off the ground or throw their shirts and bras into burning trash cans just to light the darkness is called solidarity. It revolves around a sense of shared struggle, whether it's a struggle for a win or space to celebrate safely.

When students chant "Defense!" as riot police beat their shields in noisy menacing unison, they have some awareness of who they are and who they are not. We are the students, we are not the police. This is our university, not theirs. This feeling has been in short supply, at least since I've been at the university, but Wednesday night the air was thick with it.

I'm sure plenty of people in all segments of the university would like to write off the celebration and the "riot" that resulted as the misguided actions of a drunk and stupid few, but the semi-anonymous mass contained students of all stripes, shoulder to shoulder against an advancing army. For a few hours, a student community existed apart from university structures. It was on fire, and it was beautiful.

Malcolm Harris is a senior English and government and politics major. He can be reached at harris at umdbk dot com.