Only doing slightly less work than typical Mass Highway employee.
Hey Clams of Justice. We’re gonna do a longer bit on for-real MLK Day, but to start, lets just throw a few points out there about how to and how not to talk about people protesting for something like equality, which is overall is a thing that is kinda important, even if you disagree with the method.
1. When people are protesting for justice, even if you don’t agree with the cause or the method, do not make fun of the protesters’ weight lest ye also bring to mind the BMIs on both sides of a given issue. This was the most obnoxious thing I saw online, lots of angry posts about the girth of some of the people staging the traffic block on the expressway.
Do you really want to go there, hard rightwingers? Do we want to decide this in a weigh-off? Because I’m cool settle our differences by that means if you want, and to boot I’ll bring in obesity in red states and what it costs our country and the corporations who profit from it at the expense of the rest of us who actually eat vegetables and stuff. Let’s rumble (or jiggle, in your case).
2. Even if you are mad. Even if you are furious, never never say: “Just drive over them.” Never do this ever. These are human beings who believe something. They are not war criminals, they are not child murderers (and well get to the waaambulance thing in a second) they are not members of ISIS taking over towns and slaughtering and enslaving the innocent. You may think they are misguided, fine and you can be pissed they are making you late to work. But that does not merit the death penalty, saying so makes you look cruel and stupid. You know what’s going out of style? Cruel and stupid. Trust me on this.
3. Don’t bring up the “Ohmigod they diverted an ambulance and a patient had to go to a regional hospital in the Greater Boston Area!” which is like having to go to the third best restaurant in New York. For fucks’ sake people. If the Pats win the Superbowl and the streets are full of whooping moronati, let’s hear this complaint from the same mouths. Especially considering the occupants of the post-Pats win ambulances will be alcohol poisoned bros who jumped off lampposts and wound up with the handlebar of a Hubway bike forcefully inserted up their rectal cavity.
4. A message for the protesters: Your messaging sucks. It’s terrible. I get that you have a point to make and you are trying to be inclusive and all that, but your manifestos always argle bargle off into incomprehensible liberalspeak. FIX THIS IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO LISTEN TO YOU.
You know what else matters? Web design.
Example: you chained yourself to a white barrel and you knew the press was coming, right? Did no one say, “Hey, maybe write “Black Lives Matter” on this in a pleasing yet imperative font? Did you not think to drive people to this website of yours to sign them up to maybe help with the cause like Moveon.org does? Your website is terrible, by the way. The worst. Fix it. If you are making “statements” then you are in the communication business so fucking act like it.
This shit matters if you are trying to reach a wider audience. “Black Lives Matter” is good, excellent even. YOU DON’T NEED TO SAY ANYTHING ELSE. In fact, saying more is a bad idea. I have always been profoundly vexed by the ability of the reactionaries to come up with a bumpersticker like “Nobama” that says everything it needs to in a single word and then have progressives do this:
How about just “Nobomber”?
5. But lastly, as wobblily executed as this was, I’ll be honest and say that the whole “black kids getting shot” thing was starting to leave my consciousness. I know it’s inconvenient to be reminded of hard truths, but changing minds is work so the protesters get credit for taking a shot at that.
They did more than me to create a fair and just society last week. That much is for sure.