“Racism is the pandemic”

“Let America breathe again”

“End police violence”

“No fucking more”

Just a few of the messages protesters in Irvine scrawled on makeshift cardboard signs as they occupied the lawn in front of Irvine City Hall on Wednesday, June 3.

Evan J. Lancaster

Hundreds of people showed up for Wednesday’s protest, which was organized by the creators of @OCForBlackLives Instagram account. Started on June 2, the account grew more than 1,000 followers in one day, and was largely responsible for bringing massive crowds to Irvine’s Civic Center on Wednesday. 

During the @OCForBlackLives “Sit In,” intermittent chants of “Black Lives Matter” and “George Floyd” echoed over the sound of passing car horns, as protesters surrounded all corners of Alton Pkwy and Harvard Ave, in front of Irvine City Hall.

Several black attendees spoke publicly, sharing experiences, and calling for change. Some spoke with the help of a megaphone in order to be heard over the cheers, chants and horns. 

N.N., a 20-year-old speaker who later asked to be identified by her initials, said she came out to speak because she said there’s an underrepresentation of the black community in Irvine. During her speech, she revealed a sobering statistic — she was 1 of 17 black students in a graduating class of 500.

A speaker addresses the crowd during the @OCForBlackLives ‘Sit In’ Protest on Wednesday June 3. (Evan J. Lancaster)

She said the crowd was too big for her to count, but felt like it could have been thousands of people. 

“I don’t even know if I could quantify, it was a lot of people, it was an overwhelming number of people,” she said. “Standing up there, speaking to these people — having people be receptive to what I’m saying, was honestly one of the first times I’ve ever felt accepted by this community, ever felt accepted in Irvine — it just made me feel so hopeful,”  she explained to Irvine Weekly. 

She said she graduated Irvine’s Woodbridge High School in 2018, and said she wants to see change, not only in the shape of law enforcement reform, but also in aspects of education.   

“Very often, you’re the only black kid in the room. I’ve never had a black teacher in my life, I’ve had black substitutes, twice — that’s it,” she said. “It’s not just about police brutality, it’s not just the instances in which we are losing our life, it’s also the instances in which we are being disrespected, and which we are being treated differently from our peers that we need to stand up for everyday.” 

“I showed up for change, and I will keep showing up for change.”   

Irvine residents Alizah Gomez, 18 and Ida Nariman, 18 are two of the three college students responsible for creating the @OCForBlackLives Instagram page earlier this week.

In an interview with Irvine Weekly after the ‘Sit In’, Gomez said they do not consider themselves an organization, but hope to unify the community through a grassroots movement. The main goal, according to Gomez, who attends the University of California, Irvine, was to give the black community in Irvine a place to feel empowered.

Nariman, an Irvine Valley College student, explained her parents thought attending the Los Angeles protests during a pandemic would have been too dangerous, considering the escalating tensions between protesters and law enforcement. That’s when her and her friends decided to start @OCforBlacklives.

“We wanted to go to the L.A. protests, but our parents said ‘no’ because of coronavirus and it was getting really violent and we just knew it wasn’t enough to sit back and not do anything,” she said.

“Honestly, we didn’t really expect this, we made the Instagram [page] yesterday. We organized this in the span of a day and it really shows how our community unifies to support such a big movement right now,” Niraman explained. “We don’t want this to be a trend. We want this to be a systematic change in our government.”

Wednesday marked the fourth consecutive day protesters gathered peacefully in Irvine and elsewhere in Orange County. People came together to support the Black Lives Matter movement, protesting anti-police brutality and the death of George Floyd. 

Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Minnesota while he was handcuffed, in police custody after a police officer placed a knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine-minutes, ignoring his cries for help.

Derek Chauvin, the former Minnesota Police officer has since been arrested and charged. On Wednesday, an upgraded murder charge was given to Chauvin. The other four officials have also been arrested. 

As more protests spread across the country, Orange County has been preparing for the worst since Sunday. Sunday night, Orange County and Los Angeles County issued curfews for Huntington Beach and Costa Mesa. Mayor Garcetti also issued a curfew in Los Angeles as peaceful protests were overshadowed by looting and rioting.

Both South Coast Plaza and the Irvine Spectrum were shutdown earlier this week to prevent any looting and rioting.

Despite four days of protests, the City of Irvine did not issue a curfew.

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