Over the 2 months, I have been working with the activist community that I have been involved with for almost 3 years on The Peoples Climate March and Flood Wall Street. During this time, Michael Brown & Eric Garner specifically were murdered by police and there were protests here in NYC. Most who were involved here locally never showed up. I went to the Eric Garner march on Staten Island and left early to get over to the space where art was being built to try to learn a new skill to put in my activist and organizer toolkit and this march to me did not seem to resonate with this crowd. Moving forward to the actual day of the Peoples Climate March, there was an African-American Day Parade in Harlem. I knew about this march, but I made the decision to stay in and organize with a predominately-white organized march. Furthermore, I was helping with the organizing of Flood Wall Street, another environmental action. I will say that I have never seen the NYPD be this hands off of protestors in my short time here. During the action, I started to get really uneasy... knowing that we can sit on one of the busiest streets -- without a permit -- for 8 hours -- while black and brown people in this City are arrested, brutalized and killed for petty crimes. There are other reasons why Im upset about Flood Wall St., but that comes down to a basic way activists organize actions in NY. I know that the issue of climate change is super important, but Im mad at myself for not being more involved in Racial Justice matters and Im frustrated from the seemingly lack of care from the group of activists that work around. Looking back... just feeling deeply frustrated. theculture.forharriet/2014/09/the-largest-black-parade-in-america-no.html
Posted on: Tue, 23 Sep 2014 21:03:25 +0000
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