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Re: Extinction Rebellion Disrupts London Underground

Posted by JayZeeBMT on Mon Oct 21 06:54:48 2019, in response to Re: Extinction Rebellion Disrupts London Underground, posted by MainR3664 on Sun Oct 20 21:23:33 2019.

I beg to differ. Years ago, I took part in nonviolent direct action to raise awareness about the killings of gay people in NYC, which that year had risen to a level not seen since the 1960s. We briefly shut Grand Central Terminal down in a "die-in". Among us were professionals, blue-collar workers, and students.

Guess what? It worked. People felt it, and the following month, the city finally got serious about investigating and prosecuting the murders of LGBTQ people in the city. Before our little demonstration, cases like Rashawn Brazell, a young gay man killed and dismembered in the Fulton Street subway tunnel (parts of his body were found wrapped in NYCT-issue garbage bags between Nostrand and Kingston-Throop), were all but ignored.

It took the NYPD another eleven years to find a suspect, even though the killer left clues everywhere. As Brazell was a "socially unacceptable" victim, the cops didn't assign real resources to his case; there were other, higher-status murders to investigate.

My point is, this is how mass protest works. It's how Dr. King killed Jim Crow, and it's how meaningful change is brought about today. People don't respond to social issues until it affects them in some way. In Montgomery, bus revenue plummeted; in NYC, wealthy people missed their trains. In both cases, the desired result was achieved.

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