Print this article. This story is part of a joint series by The Forge and Prism. Read the rest of the series, Organizing, Innovation, and Upheaval, here. Before the year spiraled out of control, it was already clear that it would be a busy one for me. I was in the middle of an uphill legislative battle to drastically boost investments in affordable housing, public education, and healthcare in Black and brown neighborhoods through a tax on billionaires.
Then everything changed. But things got even worse. Numerous acquaintances were also hit hard by the virus. Not to mention, Governor Cuomo completed an epic power grab that gave him unilateral powers to cut funding and inch New York closer to cruel austerity. And then the uprisings happened. Organizing during the largest protest movement in U.
It has also given me hope that, through all of the darkness that this year has brought, we are closer than ever to achieving justice. Fighting both, at scale, has left our opponents more vulnerable than ever. In a matter of weeks, campaigns to defund the police, remedy wealth inequality, and center investments in public goods have moved years ahead of schedule.
We are working overtime to restrategize and keep up with the pace at which the public is ready to move. That means no more mincing words or tempering demands to appeal to elected officials obsessed with a perceived middle ground between real collective prosperity and violence against the masses on behalf of the wealthy white ruling class. This is a moment to lean into what we should have done all along: say what we fucking mean and demand solutions at the scale of the giant problems our people face.
Demanding radical solutions often feels more likely to jeopardize the half loaf we usually get than to secure big, transformational wins. But we have to leave that conventional wisdom behind. All three criteria are important, but the first is usually where we fall short. We all know the feeling of trying to get hype for a press conference or picket line. More often than not, it sucks. All over New York City, daily bike ride protests have popped up; out-of-work pastry chefs have hosted bake sales to support organizing; mini-communities like Occupy City Hall and CHAZ have created platforms and model communities that drive thousands of articles and millions of social media posts; eviction defense teams are springing into action to protect homes by forming mini-occupations.
