Laura Jedeed (Misanthrophile)

An activist gets up and tells us that he is being kicked out of the United States because of his protest activities. He has lived here for a long time He began to protest because police killed his brother in NYC I watched him arrested on the 100th day. He did nothing wrong

He tells us he has no family in his home country. He says he doesn't know what he's going to do He tells us he hopes he can come back after November Chant: "No Borders, No Nations: Abolish Deportation!"

He talks about the origin of modern police in the slave patrols of the 1800s. But more than that: how the slave patrols had to convince people of their importance To convince the North to cooperate, they created a narrative ofan inherent, dangerous Black criminality

This myth of terrifying blackness continues to haunt us to this day And when enforced poverty led to acts of desperation? When brutalization led to brutality? The system incorporated these unsurprising effects of oppression into that myth

Editorial note: this shit is why reform isn't enough The problem isn't choke holds or body cameras or whatever The problem is that we are soaked, from the day we were born, in a deeply racist worldview

Ray points out that we are all part of this system. And that white people benefit from that system, whether they intend to or not These benefits places upon us an obligation to act "This is a fucked up situation we were born into. But now we are adults." Time to make a change

Ray says that if you truly understand the struggle, you can't just go home You can't just say, we've had enough If you really feel it, you have to keep fighting The crowd cheers

Lotta chuds in the replies tonight, thanks for boosting my engagement :)

Hard to photograph this in the dark but we're definitely seeing more of them come out. Watching from the shadows I regretfully put on my helmet. Feds rarely give warning before they charge

The protest begins to gather around the IRS building The feds emerged from this building on August 22nd during the far right rally, but the nightly protests have never involves this building before The protest marches by, screaming "Fuck you, roof cop!!"

....and the protest keeps marching, away from the feds and up Madison street

This march has only grown. Gotta be 300 people now

Just as I sit down and take my helmet off, the cry goes up: Shields to Madison! Reports of cops forming a riot line

Meanwhile, the protest is formed up and ready at 4th and Madison By the sound of it, someone's launching small fireworks The IRS building looms behind

Protest on the move again. A brief confrontation quickly diffuses as people decide to leave the interlocutor behind and keep walking Not sure what started the argument but I have been told the upset gentleman is extremely high on LSD These things happen

As we walk, a protester decides to break some Starbucks windows Earlier I did a bit about starbucks windows; this time windows have been broken for real

Some weirdness. The drum line and black activists start off one way. Another group starts waking back to the JC and motions everyone to follow A black activist asks the protesters to respect black leadership and stick together "Just help us out. Work with us, man!"