Quotes from the 1-93 Protesters. No, really!
“I need to go to the hospital! Please get out of the way!” 0:25 “Get away from my vehicle!’ 1:40
http://www.wcvb.com/…/protesters-offer-no…/30745932
Please share widely!
I-93 – “I need to go to the hospital! Please get out of the way!” “Get away from my vehicle!”
I wonder if it occurred to any of them that that is precisely what any ambulances might have been thinking as they approached their barricade. I think Rep. Garry overreacted by filing legislation creating new crimes out of this, but I also fully support their being arrested for trespassing on a public highway. Time, place, and manner are valid concerns as long as they are content-neutral and the first amendment does not give one the right to tie up traffic.
The Glenn Becks on the Right are just convinced that the Left in this country is somehow taking cues from Saul Alinsky. This counts as evidence to the contrary.
A better conceived protest would have made arrests look wrong somehow or would have dramatized the issue — and this is an issue that really very much needs to be dramatized and emphasized. One wants to see a connection between the protest and the devaluing of Black lives. Maybe, yes, something that imposes some kind of inconvenience is needed but it has to tell a story. Route 93 traffic jams tell no story.
Alinsky would have planned it better.
First the stunt drew nothing but negative attention to cause they claimed to represent.
The two “observers” on the overpass were unprepared and unwilling to speak to the media that surrounded them. A wasted opportunity to state their case.
None of the protesters were able to make coherent statements to the media waiting for then (other than ‘get out of my way’,) as they were released. Another wasted opportunity.
Media went to several homes the next day and were turned away by all but one dread-locked stoner who lived with his parents.
The press release said the intent was to “confront white complacency in the systematic oppression of black people in Boston.”
They aimed high, and failed miserably.
Yeah, if this was going to be pulled off successfully, the story to the press was essential. It had to be baked into the planning.
I could imagine talking about how racial profiling slows down the commutes of African Americans, or how segregation has confined Blacks to underserved communities where just getting to grocery stores is remarkably more inconvenient, or how these recent police killings have cut short lives just as traffic jams take a much smaller bite out of everyone’s lives.
Maybe there was a way to hook up the message.
He could have still given a limited, but still substantive response as to why HE was there. This isn’t some political campaign where only the press secretary is allowed to speak on the record.
Generally, for things like this, one wants the message to be controlled somehow. Why? Because the press will otherwise impose its own story. So I understand the reluctance to speak. Maybe they organized to that extent.
*
The problem is that, if you’re keeping everyone mum, you have to have to have at least one spokesperson who is not mum, but articulate, quotable, compelling, and, if possible, photogenic.
legacy.
was to redirect the national conversation away from the debt and back to income inequality. Happily that did not require specific demands, well-managed or unified messaging, or careful thought about tactics and optics.
I think this particular does require specific demands: 1. cameras on cops, 2. some kind of different avenue by which police can get indicted so that there isn’t this clear conflict of interest, 3. some kind of better training about the use of force, 4. better screening.
There’s also something in Kahneman’s thinking fast and slow area: Lots of us might be quite free of racism in our slow thinking, but lots and lots of studies show that fast thinking is another matter. The trouble with policing is that the life-and-death stuff all involves fast thinking — and, unless one has trained to overcome it (and I don’t know how that’s even done), there’s going to be a lot of split-second racism where there’d never be considered racism.
…I’m not at all convinced it’s a good measure. I did that, a couple of times actually I think, and was scored with a very slight white preference, but I also know that my finger just plain slipped a couple of times. Then again, I suppose it’s natural to go with the familiar. I think one’s words and actions are a much better measure of one’s true nature than subconscious mind tricks.
One compromise, bound to satisfy no one on the bigger issues but at least save lives, is switch to a taze first, shoot second approach when dealing with unarmed suspects. Tazing Garner is certainly excessive force, but at least he’d be alive today (and could sue the department). We weren’t there for Brown, so it is unclear if tazing was excessive or not, but again, the young man would be with us today. This is certainly true for the young boy in Cleveland, even if the gun was real, rapidly tazing the child would have saved his life and is a lesser evil his father is vocal about advocating.
This seems like a reform cops would fight on the one hand, while failing to end racial policing on the other, but it seems like a simple policy fix that most moderates could support and one that shows black lives matter.
In Garner’s case what he was arrested for should have been a civil rather than criminal matter anyway IMO. Death is irreversable and I would also like to see a policy of make sure the other guy shoots first.
I think a big problem with more modern social justice movements is that they get caught up by different constituencies and lack singular focus. Occupy was about income inequality but migrated to trying to build self government direct democracy experiments in encampments, I never understood how that directly related to a policy objective.
I think suggesting ideas on how police reform can be achieved using the political system and constituencies we have is incredibly important. And in case people think the two are disconnected, listen to the LBJ/MLK tapes and see how the master political tactician worked hand in hand with the spiritual leader of a people to plan and even coordinate their actions to ensure the right mix of public pressure and private lobbying got some of the most significant civil rights legislation before or since passed, and passed quickly.
is not going to be a winning idea among police departments. Police Officers are keenly aware of fellow officers who have died in the course of duty. To expect them to put that aside is to expect quite a lot.
…of a cop shooting someone he thought was reaching for a gun and it turned out not to be. They should be well-protected with kevlar, etc.
We were told that you have to aim for the middle to make center body mass shots. This is because an opponent with a gun, wielding another weapon, or even just charging with his or her body, will not be stopped by shots to the extremities. It has to be center body mass. The issue with kevlar is that it can knock an officer down or otherwise impede his or her ability to be responsive, you are still getting the full force of the pressure of the shot even if it is stopping the bullet. And we should all be well aware, that thanks to the NRA, it is still legal for criminals to buy armor piercing bullets and fragmenting shot gun shells that Kevlar can be quite vulnerable too. Not to mention fast magazine semi and fully automatic weapons and assault rifles.
Tazers however are quite effective at fully immobilizing a suspect. Already there have been lawsuits where they have been used inappropriately, and they can still cause deaths, but it seems that in the Garner, Brown, and Tamir Rice case we would have three living black men instead of three black bodies had tazers been used first. In all three circumstances, there was no credible threat of getting shot at.
and in fact I don’t think Kahneman has himself tested racial bias. However this piece that recently appeared in the New York Times cites an overwhelming number of studies. From heart catheriterization to admissions to E-Bay auctions to the kinds of quick association tests, racial bias keeps appearing among people we’d think free of it. It’s just everywhere. The point with the fast-slow contrast is that that’s where it intersects with police work in the deadliest way.
That was their chance to control the message. The WBZ footage showed the two girls refusing to speak with reporters.
If I’m not mistaken some protests in Ferguson, Missouri involved blocking highways. Maybe copying was the message?
shooting of Michael Brown and the skill of the protesters seem to have made it a better event. The protesters announced what they were doing ahead of schedule:
It doesn’t seem like they were chaining themselves to barriers. I get the protest in solidarity, but it was just poorly done.
Why on earth would harming simple laborers trying to get though their miserable day bring positive attention to the plight of our black citizens and racial injustice? I just don’t get it.
These folks exhibited an alarmingly superficial world view.
“Earlier in the day, demonstrators protesting cutbacks in police and fire protection blocked rush-hour traffic on several major roads and bridges.
Several hundred demonstrators, many of them off-duty and laid-off firemen, took part in the rush-hour blockade. Several dozen protesters marched arm-in-arm down the middle of the Southeast Expressway, the major highway for commuters from the city’s southern suburbs. Tunnels and Bridge Blocked
Other protesters concentrated on roads connecting Boston to its northern suburbs. Carrying signs and chanting slogans, they blocked the city’s two harbor tunnels and a bridge that connects downtown Boston with Charlestown.”
I came across this while googling Southeast Expressway protests. Sorry not to have more specifics, but I’ll keep digging. I’m curious to find out how many of the protesters got arrested, or lost their city jobs, whether there was any mention of delayed ambulances, etc.
do you have a link or a cite? I’d love to dig it out of the Globe archives.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1346&dat=19810429&id=2VNQAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Dw8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6936,4588559
There’s a nugget these latest protesters could’ve cited!
The headline for May 2 reads TRAFFIC STOPPED ON NINE ROADWAYS; STILL NO ARRESTS.
According to the articles, the protests were organized from the Firefighter’s union headquarters at Florian Hall.
I don’t subscribe to the Globe so I haven’t seen the full articles, but I’d be interested in finding out whether anyone complained about lives being put in danger etc.
Interesting stuff.
Mainly because nothing else really seems to work either. Complaining about stuff on the internet accomplishes zero. Even this blog accomplishes very little in the way of actual progressive change, as far as I can tell, though it’s interesting and entertaining and informative and well-intentioned. So I guess I would say “counterproductive compared to what?” There’s just nothing productive going on.
As far as the protesters, though, I would certainly like to see more articulate demands.
I think kbusch clearly showed how this kind of protest, when done properly, can actually have value. Even blocking a highway might make sense, but the organizers of this event didn’t seem to be particularly clear or articulate in what they were trying to accomplish. The fact that Boston’s black leadership wasn’t consulted and actually seemed to condemn the protestors speaks to how poorly coordinated it was.
Demonstrations can be on the Boston Common, or even on the side of the highways. Otherwise, contact your elected officials if you really want something done. If they get inundated with calls or letters, they will get the message.
Instead of tying up traffic with a blockade. Orchestrate one of those “dancing flash mob” stunts, but with a somber finish. Do it at a place like Quincy Market where everyone will record it and the thing goes “viral”.
Have three people walking down a busy street, one a few seconds after the other. The first one wears a black T Shirt with “I”, the second “Can’t”, and the third, “Breathe”. This too will get attention as people record it on their smart phones to show their friends.
That’s two just from sitting here.
Ah, yes of course. If only the protesters had realized the wisdom of a dancing flash mom, the police would most assuredly have internalized an appreciation for the intrinsic value of black lives.
Sounds like quite the Freudian slip!:)
It’s not like the critics have previously offered any alternatives. So much going on is cranky armchair quarterbacking.
There’s something quite cynical and sad about people who hadn’t participated carrying on about how those who did were doing it wrong.
It’s apparent to me how short our collective memories are. I find it fascinating that alleged “liberal” Democrats are just as quick to criticize these protesters as they were to criticize anti-war demonstrators during the VietNam era. Nobody talked about felonies when white anti-busing demonstrators made life hell for minority school children during Boston’s busing crisis.
The mainstream media would have distorted, twisted, and lied about any “message” the protesters attempted to publish. In my view, their silence was more eloquent than any statement could have been. The NECN coverage was particularly one sided. Even NECN couldn’t help but mention the applause that greeted the protesters after their arraignment in the Somerville court house.
The very fact that bonehead legislators like Ms. Garry react as they do is one point of protests like this — especially when no such reactions happens after police and fire fighters do the same thing.
The “I need to go to the hospital” meme is total garbage. The traffic jam on I-93 was no worse than the six-mile backup that happens on that road every morning. The ambulance drivers have google maps with traffic highlighting, and know the back roads, just like every commuter.
I hope protests like this continue to intensify. It is only when privileged whites are directly impacted by officially sanctioned and enabled police brutality that those privileged whites will insist that the police behavior change.
Apparently we shall brook no inconvenience.
That exhibits a very shallow world view.
.. as making dumb messes in Mass about problems in Missouri and Staten Island.
Maybe it’s a preemptive strike in case our usually congenial local cops should get ideas about suffocating a cigarette peddler or shooting a big kid cause he looks scary?
What all is Mass supposed to do? And you can bet the knuckle draggers in Missouri and the NYPD are now in the darkest canyons of fear and anxiety because some rich college kids in Massachusetts made a hash of a commute hundreds of miles away…. that’ll show em.
been part of organizing a demonstration?
Most all the ones I’ve been involved with — admittedly a ways back in the past — involved a keen focus on what the message was and how to get it across. The guys, for example, I overheard at the gym, complaining about “hippies” (!) blocking traffic, clearly lacked a clue as to what the message was — unless the message was “hippies are annoying”.
I’ve been involved with organizing many demonstrations. Now I have a counter-question for you: Do you understand how advertising messaging works?
Suppose the purpose of the action is to persuade a number of people of a certain characterization of government. One way is to say “Cops are pigs”. Another way is to provoke behavior by the cops that causes every viewer who watches the news report to say “those cops are pigs”.
Advertisers learned decades ago a strong negative reaction from a viewer is actually very effective at cementing “brand awareness” in that viewer, more so than a positive reaction. EVERYBODY hated the “please don’t squeeze the Charmin” commercials. The commercial was enormously effective, nevertheless, because viewers remembered and recognized the “Charmin” brand LONG after they forgot how much they hated the ad. The result was that the ad caused measurable increases in market share for the product.
I think these actions are working just fine. I think the reactions we’re seeing here and from people like Ms. Garry are exactly what the protesters want.
But even if we grant the Charmin-effect, I don’t understand how the messaging works. The protests still seem ham-handed and I don’t see how they’re going to make the bacon. Is the goal to abolish police departments because they’re excessively porcine? Really? The Charmin ads told us about a desirable quality in bathroom tissue. These demonstrations have not put police brutality into the spotlight.
I haven’t thought about it that much, but it seems to me that getting cameras on officers would be a big and very useful first step in saving African-American lives. Why not demand that and make it a prominent demand?
I’m not part of the organization that conducted these protests, so I can speak only to the message I got. A demonstration organizer would have to comment on what message was intended.
I hope that we agree that not all all cops are “pigs”. Is it so very hard to appreciate that the “pigs” being protested are the uniformed thugs who intimidate, beat, and kill black Americans with impunity? Surely you remember that these protests began when NO CHARGES were brought against Daniel Pantaleo, the cop who killed Mr. Garner with a chokehold. Surely you recall that the medical examiner classified Mr. Garner’s death as a “homicide” (as opposed to suicide, accident, natural, and undetermined). If, with those recent events in mind, you come to the conclusion that the goal of the protests were to “abolish police departments”, then no press release would have swayed you.
To me, the point of the protests was to attack apathy and to keep the police brutality issue on the radar screen of the masses.
Unless/until there is a similar outrage on the part of Boston PD or another one in the area the connection will be tenuous at best. If anyone must be affected by the protests it should be those responsible for the problem, which I-93 commuters by and large are not. Otherwise they will generate a negative reaction directed at themselves. People won’t think, “Look at these brave people standing up against excessive police force,” but rather, “Those were the clowns who made me late for work that day.”
I’m fine with protests if they are correlated and coherent. Go ahead and block highways til cows return to them. I don’t drive.
But this was incoherent and not particularly applicable to anything here.
And, since apathy is unlikely to go away any time soon, they better be ready for a long haul. Forget about that degree credential… just gear up for a life time of fending off apathy and making sure radar screens of masses are properly cluttered with fluttered tinfoil.
It was a feel good exercise for rich white college kids far from any scene of conflict. They had time and money to contrive contraptions of concrete loaded 55 gallon drums and rent a truck with a lift gate and whatever other handling gear was needed.
The vehemence of insistence that it wasn’t a stupid misfired stunt is the tell that it was.
If it were so brilliant, these masshole masses would have it permanently affixed to their radar screens, but it has all amounted to yet another canary fart in the roaring sawmill of rush hour.
Jack knifed tractor trailers do it more frequently without imparting much of a message either.
Just a couple exits down the road, in 2013 Wifredo Justiniano was shot because he threatened a state trooper with a pen.
I don’t know how dark Mr. Justiniano’s complexion was but a lot of the other factors were there: the complete insulation of the trooper from any public scrutiny, an investigation of the victim, and a rapid dissemination of derogatory information about him, and a display of indifference/incompetence from the media (in particular the Globe) which is just mind boggling.
I say we can stipulate all we want that they aren’t saints. That STILL is no excuse for being executed by law enforcement. No matter how much bad stuff they had done prior to the incident in question it is all completely irrelevant to the incident itself.
If you put the ‘L’ in “Wilfredo” and do a search query his complexion and a number of other details are readily at hand.
http://baystateexaminer.com/examiner-releases-state-police-report-wilfredo-justiniano-shooting/
The details look pretty bland, not much character assassination, a report transcript is provided. It did seem like a pretty wretched encounter for all involved.
Google is your friend as is spell check.
1. The police officer engaged the victim without waiting for backup
2. The emotionally-disturbed and unarmed victim attacked the police officer.
3. The unarmed victim was shot and killed by a police officer
4. The victim was dead by the time he was transported to an ER
5. No charges were filed
6. The mainstream media conducted no followup
Just one more example where we, collectively, gave the police officer carte blanche to kill with NO repercussions.
And the difference from the other two more tumultuous cases was considerable disagreement about the nature of the encounter.
There is agreement about this encounter. It wasn’t right but it’s also something of a straw grasp and a suffering contest as comparisons generally go.
A statie was half in panic mode from the intensity of the attack. Backup arrival can be sluggish in ambiguous situations. I lived next door to a gang banger with a 9mm in Seattle and he was at war with neighbors. Like on the other side of my apartment wall.
It took cops 20 minutes to arrive during one of his shooting incidents even though I could walk to the cop shop in like 6 minutes. They finally took him down when he was jacking a convenience store. It was a harrowing period.
If I could find a way to make little half assed Mayberry Massachusetts more menacing than it actually is, I surely would.
I’d love to be the armchair arbiter of it all but I’d rather just admit I have no idea what I’d do in a similar situation and I’d bet most people who are honest with themselves would allow the same.
At least I’m out there making stands on a bunch of things in a much higher profile forum than this will ever be with my real name and easy traceability.
The police knew from the initial call that the victim was emotionally disturbed and out of control. The statie had no business engaging the victim without backup — the attack was a response to his apparently ham-handed attempt to intervene.
The victim is just as dead as any of the targets of your “gang-banger” in Seattle.
I’m glad you’re out there. I encourage you to perhaps be a bit more tolerant of people who do things differently from you.
But it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Every good kettle likes its bit of encouragement from a proper pot.
I’d love to second guess the statie highway situation but I haven’t walked in those particular shoes.
If the difference of thinking involves this armchair certainty over admission of ambiguity, gray and fog, then I’ll have to side with the fog because I’m just not that significant as to lord my certainty over utter strangers.
“The statie had no business engaging the victim without backup — the attack was a response to his apparently ham-handed attempt to intervene.”
Cite your sources. Include all applicable Massachusetts State Police training protocols and witness statements.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/209723246/Norfolk-County-District-Attorney-s-Report-on-the-Police-Shooting-of-Wilfredo-Justiniano
There was backup present. Evidently Mr. Justiniano was flailing so wildly it took two cops to attempt restraint and he was shot in the course of that after pepper spray only made things worse.
The report makes for interesting reading and allows revisionists to cut to the chase and just mutter darkly about cover ups, sparing us further uninformed rationalizations and poorly asserted, lazily researched accounts.
The redaction some have mentioned mainly turn on reports of prior similar encounters in New Bedford and appear to have been occasioned to protect the privacy of the deceased.
The 911 call was for an ambulance, because another driver saw Justiniano in his car and thought he might be having a heart attack.
The ambulance was already on its way. It would have been traveling against traffic from Milton Hospital, or possibly from the North Randolph Fire Station, which is less than a mile away.
My guess is that an ambulance arrived almost immediately after Justiniano was shot. However, it shouldn’t be necessary to speculate. Any reasonable investigation would have included a timeline to show exactly who arrived when.
Contrast that investigation with that of that of the Norfolk District Attorney himself. A few weeks later the DA ran his car off the road. He claimed to have had a sudden fainting spell, although there were suspicions that the accident had something to do with him being on his cell phone at the time of the accident.
The DA admitted to ordering a pizza on his cell phone before the accident, but claimed that an investigation proved that he had finished his call a full minute before running his car off the road.
Whatever you think about the conclusions of the two investigations, the contrast in method is stark.
The investigation of the DA set up a timeline to put him in the best light possible. The investigation of the Justiniano shooting avoided putting a timeline together, which might have made the shooting look less like an endangered officer shooting as a last resort.
I love people who remember stuff- good for you Bob. What did that whole thing end up being about? He had a seizure or something? I remember finding it somewhat strange at the time, and wondered whether, if the medical explanation was legitimate, if a person subject to such episodes should really be driving. Did he lose his license, I wonder? He ended up causing a pretty bad car crash on the other side of the road, if I remember correctly. People could have been killed.
but, from everything I see, the break from apathy this style of protest is going to cause is some means of keeping protesters off highways, and not some kind of course correction in policing.
Decent people were horrified by Bull Connor and his fire hoses and German Shepherds. I don’t know anyone who’s thinking “those cops are pigs” after this. They’re too busy thinking “those protestors are idiots.” I don’t believe a single person who wasn’t already sympathetic is now looking at these issues as a result of these actions.
If it’s been a while and you’re not sure, perhaps it would help you to understand that just like with political campaigns and a new candidate who inspires people, many people get involved who have never been involved in politics before. They don’t have paid staff who have gone through training to figure out messaging, logistics, or for being a spokesperson. Roles are generally assigned based on who can volunteer and believes that he or she is capable or carrying out the task. Many times these actions are also activities of a group of friends in an activist group that serves as their social peer group. It’s easy to see how these events also serve for social bonding and a sense of purpose.
There is rarely if ever any system of metrics put in place for activists to determine if their action was executed well or will be effective to change society or policy.
The only real milestones and sense of achievement people have for these events are if they were carried on, how many people attended, the media was present, and if they got coverage from the media.
These are extremely well known problems in grassroots organizing. The exception to the rule is the group that is on point in all matters, and if you’re ever lucky to find one, it’s incredibly likely that it is being organized by paid personnel for a politician’s campaign, a labor union, a non-profit with large funding, or an astroturf org created by the Koch brothers or their ilk.
are over.
Context may not be everything, but it’s a lot. Protests don’t have the value they once did. Occasionally, there’s one that makes a political difference, such as the various Occupy protests, but aside from garnering attention for an issue and helping organize the like-minded, they are largely taken for granted these days. I’m not shooting down protesting in general, but this protest was amateur hour in a time when protests are not particularly meaningful.
And it lets people work with each other across the planet. I was in regular touch with a few African American organizers and other activists for both Fergusen and NY.
I was also one of the early Americans in Google Plus to call attention to the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the Boko Haram Massacre up near Gome.
I have over 2,700 friends and followers of which I regularly engage around a hundred. They are on every continent and are from all walks of life.
One of my current efforts is to try and offset the tendency to make 2 dimensional abstractions of afflicted peoples from Palestinians to Ebola victims and so on where I run posts of how their lives are when something isn’t messing with them.
Protesting in a place where it is actually dangerous to do so is impressive. But Tufts is a place where wealthy families send their kids. The late Kara Kennedy was there when I was. And the police know this so no matter how ridiculous they were it was still going to be a kid glove affair.
I remember Vietnam era protests on Boston Common that were different, tear gas was involved and people actually got seriously hurt.
As Christianity was spreading into Scotland and Ireland, the early Celtic mystics realized they faced a significant spiritual dilemma — there were no persecutors to harass, torture, and kill them. They therefore created their own “martyrdom” (I think the technical term is “white martyr”, as opposed to “red martyr”), by inventing practices such as standing in ice-cold ocean waters while reciting the Psalms, casting themselves adrift without food or water in tiny leather boats, climbing dangerously rocky and slippery mountain tops to pray, and so on.
It seems to me that you’re being pretty rough on the Tufts protesters. Police are too smart to use tear gas today (at least for events like this). Wealthy white kids can’t depend on hordes of racist thugs in uniform descending on them if they “dare” to speak out.
It seems to me that what they did has much in common with those early Celtic martyrs standing in the North Atlantic. It seems to me that being chained to barrels filled with concrete in the middle of I-93 south at rush hour is itself more than most college kids are motivated to do — even if it doesn’t meet your standards of adversity.
You look at that and dismiss them as children of wealthy families. I look at that and applaud them as young people attempting to break out of a system and culture that they see as corrupt and broken.
I, frankly, feel that it’s pretty hypocritical for this community to chastise these protesters for being “amateurish” and for inconveniencing us — and then turn around and criticize them for being apathetic.
We can’t have it both ways. I welcome the energy, I welcome the inconvenience, and I applaud the protests.
The protesters in the sixties were no more professional than protesters are today.
Some differences I see are:
1. Law enforcement is much better at co-opting protests and demonstrations
2. Protesters have grown up in far more conservative culture
3. Protesters are far less willing to actually disrupt society
4. “Supporters” seem to care far more about personal convenience than any of the issues at stake
It also seems to me that protesters will become more professional as they do more — rather than less — protesting.
It seems to me that protests will become more “meaningful” when protesters much more aggressively disrupt day-to-day life. The entire point of a civil disobedience action is to take apathetic citizens out of their comfort zone. If protesters do the things you seem to imply, they will be ignored. The resulting protests will be meaningless. This is the self-fulfilling outcome of your suggestion.
As historian noted below, much of the commentary here (including, apparently, this one, unless I misunderstand it) “calls for protests that everyone can ignore”. Amateur or not, this protest was hard to ignore.
The sixties have nothing to do with it.
I came of age in the 1980s. I remember Abbie Hoffman and Amy Carter taking over an irrelevant building at UMass to protest CIA recruitment on campus. It may have helped train some younger activists, but it had zero persuasive effect. The biggest protest was when they banned kegs on campus. I’ll judge protests on their effects, acknowledging that there will be more ineffective protests than effective protests.
This protest got attention, it was just negative attention. I think that is due to the context I was speaking of an which you list by number. More disruption isn’t going to do anything but piss more people off. The connection between tying up traffic on Rte. 93 and our racist system of criminal justice is tenuous at best. It’s going to take more than that to rock the message.
You brought up the Sixties, didn’t you?
There were a round of marches through Somerville/Cambridge prior to the highway event. And the media ignored them. I noticed a bunch of helicopters at that time and had to do a bit of searching to figure out why.
When one set of attention seeking efforts fizzles, thoughts turn to ways to find a bigger score.
This is a watershed time when many things of our past no longer have the efficacy they once did.
You can either keep doing them or identify the potentials made by the changes.
I guess what I mean is that the fundamental dynamics of how demonstrations and protests affect society (and vice-versa) haven’t changed.
The mainstream media, politicians, and a much of the public (including many here) are most attracted to demonstrations that can be ignored or, as in this case, rejected for a variety of reasons.
I only vaguely remember the CIA recruitment protests of the 1980s. It seems to me that that example validates both of our points. From my perspective, they weren’t disruptive enough. From your perspective, they were ineffective.
It seems to me that a danger we all face is that if we don’t somehow get complacent privileged whites to pay attention to the ongoing and increasing harassment and slaughter of blacks, then a vicious cycle will unfold where more and more violent protests will be met by more and more violent police responses.
I view the I-93 protests as an attempt to break that cycle. We here at BMG have been discussing them for days now, well after they’ve fallen off the mainstream media radar. I view that as a good thing.
I have argued many times here over the years that the retrospective success of the mostly non-violent demonstrations led by MLK were enabled by the simultaneous threat represented by the “long hot summers” where entire neighborhoods burned and firefighters were stoned. The NAACP was listened to, at least in part, because the Black Panthers and SNCC represented a perceived, if not real, threat to complacent white Americans. It was the classic good-cop/bad-cop game, even if mostly unintentional (I don’t suggest that the NAACP and SNCC conspired in any explicit way).
It seems to me that the ongoing abuse of minorities by police has to stop. I view the I-93 protests as preferable to setting neighborhoods of Boston afire.
Blocking traffic was counterproductive, but most of the well-meaning advice calls for protests that everyone can ignore.
Almost makes you wonder how well-meaning the advice really is.
After caving on choke holds by threatening to veto any New York City legislation banning the practice, Mayor De Blasio changes the subject.
De Blasio has been burned by what is largely a white, working class organization with deep personal and political roots in NYC that had help from the GOP.
Police in general tend toward the conservative, but they have more than their fair share of would-be fascists like Lynch. They are often insular. I don’t pretend to know how De Blasio should deal with the NYPD politically, but it can’t be easy. He was right to tell his son how to deal with the cops and right to talk about it, I think. But I’m not sure he was ready for how it would be interpreted by his enemies.
And the sources of NYPD hostility to the Mayor have little to do with police policy.
The feud is personal.
From the New York Times:
And so on.
Insofar as NYPD demographics are concerned:
But...
Assuring accountability by the NYPD will now have to be a ground-up process. DeBlasio had his chance and he blew it. His hubris started a totally unnecessary turf war, resulting in his abject surrender.
I don’t know what’s worse: the hubris or the moral cowardice.
So what do you figure will happen?
Will the nation’s attention span drift elsewhere?
Who is likely to succeed where DiBlasio has failed and when do they start?
Here’s another good topical 538 look at the issue in the spirit of improving discourse.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/collectors-protests-climate-march-political-action/
1) There will be another cause for symbolic and ineffectual grandstanding. (The cause will be legitimate, but the response will be narcissistic.)
2) Yes.
3) Bill Bratton will – indeed already has – put approaches in place, and will have the advantage of greater credibility with community folk and police rank-and-file alike.
Bratton gets another baby sitting bout.
I think one thing is for certain – the next NYC mayoral election will have a higher than 17% turnout.
…unless there is some serious on-the ground organizing work, and (to put it bluntly) in a serious contested race, with real stakes and real structural opposition, progressives can’t organize a bottle party in a brewery.
“Modern day progressives”.
There is a tendency to conflate “progressive” with “populist”. The two traditions are actually opposed, but when they get working syntheses they win elections.
That’s what I notice too.
These ‘neo progressives’ figure their great ideas are supposed to sell themselves on the merits of their own greatness and when they don’t, frustration with the public ensues.
But nearly all these aims require lots of heavy lifting over a long haul, lots of engagement with strangers who may not be “like minded”, (the horror), and so forth.
It resembles a gaggle of cubicle yuppies showing off their political sleeve wear.