the politics of counting

[Guest guest]

Protest numbers don't add up

Police now say 150,000 safe guess

 

Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, January 21, 2003

One thing is certain about the crowd estimates for Saturday's peace rally in San

Francisco: Everyone's estimate is wrong. Probably.

 

The variations, from 55,000 to 200,000, are enough to give a statistician

whiplash. But even though a police spokesman Monday amended those numbers up to

as many as 150,000 marchers, experts say such wild ranges are to be expected.

 

" I have never seen an identical estimate by authorities and protesters, " said

Neil Smelser, professor emeritus of sociology at the University of California at

Berkeley, where you can't swing a picket sign without hitting a demonstrator.

 

For protesters, numbers are crucial -- the higher the number at a given rally,

the more important does the rally become in the eyes of the news media and, the

protesters hope, in the eyes of the public and the halls of government.

 

Officials with International ANSWER, or Act Now to Stop War & End Racism, for

example, are steadfast in their count of 200,000 marchers who made their way

from the Ferry Building to Civic Center Plaza, saying the only change in that

number would be upward.

 

" Saturday's demonstration was far, far larger than the Oct. 26 march, " which

drew 80,000 according to protesters and 40,000 according to police, said Richard

Becker, a member of ANSWER's national steering committee in San Francisco.

 

" I think it's ludicrous that this could have been a march of 50,000, " he said.

 

Police estimates of 55,000 demonstrators came from a counting of people in Civic

Center Plaza and did not include marchers who were backed up along Market

Street, said Jim Deignan, San Francisco police spokesman.

 

Aerial photographs show a packed plaza and masses stacked back along streets

leading in. If Civic Center Plaza were filled and Market Street were lined all

the way to Justin Herman Plaza, a 200,000 estimate could be accurate, said

Deignan.

 

" I think it was between 50,000 and 100,000, " he said, but later said that

150,000 could be a safe estimate.

 

ANSWER had volunteers stationed at Seventh and McAllister streets, counting the

number of people who passed in a five-minute interval, Becker said.

 

About 1,000 people passed per minute and the march lasted 170 minutes, he said.

By adding protesters who came in separate marches -- such as the alternative

energy troupe in hybrid cars -- and those who got tired of marching and took

back roads to the Civic Center, organizers arrived at the " very, very

supportable " number of 200,000.

 

 

What all that means is numbers are politics and play a much bigger role than

just context for an event.

 

" It all becomes evidence in the larger debate about the significance of the

cause in the larger debate, " Smelser said.

 

That can affect how a cause is portrayed in the media, too.

 

Bill Hackwell, who works for ANSWER, was interviewed by a television reporter

whose first statement was that the Washington, D.C., march drew only 30,000

people, he said.

 

" It seemed to me like they were saying this was losing momentum, that the

movement was slowing down. It's obvious to anyone that it's growing, " he said.

 

The numbers in Washington varied more than those in San Francisco -- police

estimated up to 50,000, while organizers estimated 500,000.

 

Washington police officials were off Monday for the holiday, and organizers

there -- who say police want to discredit their movement -- felt demonstrators

were " shockingly undercounted. "

 

" It was huge, it was packed, " said Mara Verhayden-Hilliard, a spokeswoman for

ANSWER. She said their number came from counts like those used in San Francisco,

along with estimates from the length and density of the march.

 

Crowd counting in the capital used to fall under the auspices of the National

Park Service. Congress stopped that after the park service estimated the 1995

Million Man March at 400,000 people and were threatened with a lawsuit and

charged with racism.

 

But counting will continue, and so too should controversy.

 

" You have people estimating crowds according to their interest and what effect

that number may have on an audience, " Smelser said. " I would put the whole

dialogue of numbers in a political rather than a numerical context. "