CHICAGO (AP) — A Chicago activist says anti-violence protesters plan to shut down part of an expressway near O’Hare International Airport on Labor Day.
The Rev. Gregory Livingston says Monday’s march is aimed at drawing attention to protesters’ demands, which include more investment in neighborhoods where the bulk of Chicago’s shootings occur. Livingston also wants Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign and says community members should have a role in renegotiation of the police union’s contract.
Protesters are expected to gather around 11:30 a.m. at the Cumberland Avenue exit to Interstate 90, also known as the Kennedy Expressway. They plan to march westbound on the expressway for about a mile.
Livingston also organized a protest that briefly shut down Lake Shore Drive on Chicago’s North Side last month.
Protests work when your protest hits them where they live.
Teachers strike? Who cares. Oh, except now every voter with children has a pressing day care emergency – phones ring in the capitol and lawmakers (reluctantly) do their fucking jobs.
Protestors demand less militarized policing? Who gives a fuck. Oh, except now they’ve shut down traffic to a major transportation hub on a holiday. Maybe some phones will ring in the capitol this time.
Amen. I used to worry about the wisdom of such dramatic protests, but not any more. If a protest is to have any impact on future policy, it has to (as you said) really affect people’s daily lives. The last protest on Lakeshore Drive received a great deal of media attention in Chicago, but one protest isn’t enough to produce real change. Keep it up!
Prostesting Pro-Tip: Don’t make people late for their jobs, dates, or other appointments. If someone is on an expressway then they probably have someplace they need to be. If you hold them up then they will get pissed off. People who are angry at you are less likely to listen to you. In fact they’ll probably think your a prick. Then when they finally arrive at their destination they’ll tell everyone, “sorry guys, the expressway was backed up because of those fucking protestors!”
Once you’ve attained the category of “those fucking x’rs,” you’re in an out group. The other. You’re not like them. They will vote against you.
Hit whom where they live? Exactly whom is this protest supposed to be targeting? Tourists? People trying to drive to the mall? NW suburbanites? Are any of them responsible for the violence plaguing certain neighborhoods? “Yeah, if we fuck up traffic and scare away the tourists, that’ll show ‘em!” Show them what, they never manage to say.
They should be protesting the gun makers, gun sellers, and gang members — everyone knows who they are and where they live. That would be a much more effective protest — you know, hitting them where they live and all, right?
I could drive you to several spots on West Division or West Augusta right now where, at this very moment, there are dozens of gang members hanging out literally in the middle of the street peddling drugs and guns. That would be a much more effective target for protest — imagine how quickly that scourge could end if tens thousands of protestors flooded the streets day and night and shamed the drug and gun sellers?
Cops on bicycles are already on site near the Cumberland Ave. on-ramp to I-90 West, ready to block any pedestrian trying to walk down it.