The first half of the protest tonight was amazing, the second half was why I'm not a regular protester: a thread

1) We marched through the streets of downtown Chicago, interrupting traffic, & it was awesome.

2) Many people of other races were clearly irritated with our protest, but most black people grinned their asses off when they heard us chanting "Say his name! George Floyd!" & "Black lives matter!"

Several stopped what they were doing to join us. It was amazing, uniting.

3) But then one group leader said to start running. I asked people why, no one knew, just ran, so I hung back to ask the group leader at the back.

They wanted to go on the Dan Ryan, a major highway in Chicago.

4) Here's the thing: the police *helped us* interrupt traffic downtown. They gave us zero BS. But the leaders of this group like to push it to get headlines (fail, the news is barely covering our protest) & to provoke the police into making a possible arrest, at least imo.

5) It doesn't sit well with me to TRY to get people arrested. Nor do I understand the point of running on the highway. I am all for disruptive behavior & will do a future die-in if this group holds one, but I dunno, those are my thoughts.

Thoughts?

6) I should add apparently one cop was a dick *before* the protest, the rest were fine.

I should also add I'm convinced part of the reason we ran was to make it look like we *had* to run. We did not.